Part 2 - Medicine and Healthcare: Coaching and Medicine with Megan Melo MD
Therapist Expanded Website, Instagram, Facebook
Welcome back to Therapist Expanded! Today I’m interviewing Megan Melo, MD.
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- Megan is a family medicine physician 12 years into the field, and she shares her own journey with burnout and how she's seen burnout in the lives of women she's treated, as well as her female colleagues
- Megan left a practice where boundaries were difficult and burnout was present and she got training as a coach to answer the question, "how do we care for ourselves in a sustainable way when caring for others?"
- Megan mainly coaches physicians and physician assistants
- She shares the intense sacrifice that’s made in medical school and residency, and how this “service mode” takes a toll on physical health and wellbeing in the moment, and normalizes poor self-care through not responding to our own needs, but to relieve as much suffering as possible in others
- I share a synopsis of what was described last episode about the history of medical overworking beginning in the 1700s
- We discuss over-performing and over-functioning and how that can lead to self-righteousness and resentment
- Megan did the courageous thing of listening to her need for change in herself and now supports others
- She laid out some of the gender differences she perceived in terms of boundaries and self-care for her male counterparts (especially older males), and how people pleasing and feeling put upon was leaking out as frustration and resentment for her female counterparts
- Megan identifies that part of that issue is the huge medical system issues, but also the people pleasing, perfectionism, and lack of boundaries that lead to real suffering, blame, and resentment until one sees the parts in themselves that are so well conditioned to over-function
- We look at what mental health and allopathic revolution mean to her
- We look at how physicians are conditioned to respond and perform when others come with urgency, even if it’s not the best use of their time, and how there is so much extra time put into medicine, such as “pajama time,” to try and keep up with all of the work
- We discuss the human cost of the business of healthcare
- I give an example from the book Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz that is analogous to the struggle she’s describing with the business of healthcare
- I suggested these organizations look outside of their entrenched boxes and outside of medicine to other business models and other countries and cultures to innovate
- Megan lays out the messiness of the squeeze between constant suffering and people pleasing and boundaries with a real-world example of sports physicals
- I lay out the codependent culture lens on our society and the wonder of how dare we take that away from them (meaning the experience of people feeling their difficult feelings)
- Megan relates this boundaried approach to allowing others to build the skills needed to navigate failure when we don’t take their suffering away, and the importance of us being willing to sit in the discomfort of not rescuing
- We discuss how it feels unsafe for us in a codependent culture and conditioning: if our role has been to make nice and care for others, and that people’s upset with us feels unsafe and Megan shares how confronting this pattern is important
- Megan shares her brave journey of opening her own coaching business to take care of herself and contribute to positive change for physicians and physician assistants
- She shares how she had an either-or-mindset with being primarily a physician or a coach, and she asked herself, “why can’t I have both?” and now she has a clearer vision
- Megan describes her experience of being in a coaching group for female physician entrepreneurs and the inspiring and remarkable mindsets and innovations she’s seeing, and what that is going to mean for healthcare going forward
- We discuss the magic of googling, coaching, and masterminds to expand the mind and show the dynamic reality of innovation, support, failures and successes
Links to Megan's website, Instagram, and Facebook
Thanks for listening!
*Hey! What's Your Therapist Fulfillment Flavor? Take the QUIZ to find out and see how much your fulfillment really is like ice cream!
On a serious note, this quiz could illuminate the beginnings of a path to your fulfillment so take the QUIZ today and receive curated content just for you!
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