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In this episode, Dr. Hales and Dr. Reinking discuss:
- The role of a physician development coach
- Overcoming physician resistance to coaching
- Dr. Reinking’s coaching process to help clients succeed
Key Takeaways:
“Don’t be afraid of the pivot. Sometimes those pivots are big. It might mean leaving your job, leaving clinical medicine, or doing something entirely different—a big, disruptive change, almost. But many times, those things that are different are just little, tiny daily changes.” – Dr. Ben Reinking.
Connect with Dr. Ben Reinking:
Website: https://thedevelopingdoctor.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-reinking-md-03987a101/
Master in Wellness: How to Thrive as a Physician course: https://courses.thedevelopingdoctor.com/
Connect with Barbara Hales:
Twitter: @DrBarbaraHales
Facebook: facebook.com/theMedicalStrategist
Business website: www.TheMedicalStrategist.com
Show website: www.MarketingTipsForDoctors.com
Email: Barbara@TheMedicalStrategist.com
Books:
YouTube: TheMedicalStrategist
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/barbarahales
TRANSCRIPTION
Dr. Barbara Hales: Welcome to another episode of Marketing Tips for Doctors. I’m your host, Dr. Barbara Hales. Today, joining us is Dr. Ben Reinking, a board-certified general pediatrician and pediatric cardiologist. As a master-certified physician development coach and founder of The Developing Doctor, he helps physicians develop the skills, mindset, and resources to achieve their career goals. Welcome, Dr. Reinking.
Dr. Ben Reinking: Thank you, Dr. Hales. I’m so excited to be here.
Dr. Barbara Hales: And we’re excited to have you here as well. Tell me, for the listeners that may not know, what is a physician development coach?
Dr. Ben Reinking: Yeah, great question. So, I’m a coach who specializes in guiding physicians—sort of really to the careers that they want. That may entail developing skills they need to succeed in clinical medicine, exploring venues outside of clinical medicine where they may thrive, identifying any gaps or misalignments in values and strengths that may be holding them back, and really, the goal is to partner with a coach and a client to help people succeed and have the career they dreamed of when they entered medical school.
Transition to Coaching
Dr. Barbara Hales: So how did that happen for you? How did you transition and say, “Hey, I’m already, you know, very empowered as a cardiologist. Let’s go and see about helping others.” How did that happen for you?
Dr. Ben Reinking: Yeah, I would say it was through my own experiences. Medical training is not easy by any means—medical school, residency, and fellowship are not easy. I was someone who got through by putting my head down and just plowing through. I relied upon that natural reset that happens in school and training, where every four weeks or six weeks, no matter the rotation, you start over. In retrospect, I didn’t develop some of the skills I needed to succeed when that pattern ended, and all of a sudden, the horizon was infinite.
I was about ten years into my clinical career—I’ve been in academics my whole career—and the wheels just kind of fell off the cart for various reasons. My clinical team had a big shift, and suddenly a lot of the colleagues I relied upon for support and camaraderie left. In my personal life, my parents both had illnesses at the same time, and I was supporting them directly and indirectly.
One of the options people consider during struggles, especially in academics, is to look for greener pastures elsewhere. But my family had just built a home in our community, and leaving wasn’t an option for us. I used the same tactic of putting my head down and plowing through—and it didn’t work. Through lots of trial and error, I stumbled upon coaching and found someone to help me. It was like a light bulb moment. I realized, “This is all stuff I should have known how to do and learned as I went through this long process, but I never did.”
Initially, I thought I would use coaching skills in my academic career, working with students, residents, and fellows. But I eventually branched off and decided to start a business.
Dr. Barbara Hales: How are your parents now?
Dr. Ben Reinking: Oh, thanks for asking. They’re both well, actually. One had a car accident, and the other had a temporary illness, but they both recovered and are doing well. Thank you.
Balancing Clinical Practice and Coaching
Dr. Barbara Hales: I’m glad to hear that. Are you seeing patients now, or are you totally devoted to helping others?
Dr. Ben Reinking: Well, I guess I’m totally devoted to helping others in my clinical practice and in coaching. So, I’m primarily still a clinician—I work about 90% of the time—and have coaching as a side business.
Dr. Barbara Hales: Do you work in a hospital setting, or do you have your own practice?
Dr. Ben Reinking: I work at an academic medical center, so I’m a university employee—in a hospital setting.
The Coaching Process and Overcoming Resistance
Dr. Barbara Hales: Oh, that’s very exciting. How has it been for you in terms of coaching physicians? Do you find they are eager to embrace the process, or do you feel there’s a lot of, you know, backing away, saying, “I don’t have the time,” or, “I’m not interested in this; it can’t help me”? Do you find there’s a lot of resistance?
Dr. Ben Reinking: Yeah, there’s absolutely a lot of resistance and misunderstanding surrounding coaching. Many times, when people are exposed to coaching—especially in academics or big healthcare systems—it’s used almost punitively. If someone is struggling or has some disruptive behavior, or something’s not happening as it should, people use the term “coaching” as remediation. In some ways, people view it as, “Oh, I’m doing something wrong.” My approach is very different—I view it as a developmental opportunity, a chance to grow and expand. It’s hard to get people to that mindset sometimes, especially if they’ve been exposed to coaching as a remediation-type activity.
Dr. Barbara Hales: So how do you win them over?
Dr. Ben Reinking: I would say there’s a light bulb moment for the people who buy into it. Usually, it’s a process of asking questions and discovering something. Often, there’s a thought someone has in their head that they view as a fact, but it’s actually just a thought holding them back. Recognizing that can lead to even a small, meaningful change in their day-to-day activity, which can have a big impact on their lives.
Dr. Barbara Hales: I see. So what is it you do in coaching them to get them to the next level?
Dr. Ben Reinking: Yeah, it’s a process. So, the coaching starts out just honestly with a meeting where we meet and talk, and just find out why someone reached out to me. And that’s a free, no-obligation kind of conversation, just to get to know each other. Then, if we land on a spot where, yeah, we’re two people that want to work together, there’s a process of getting to know each other. Well, it’s a deep dive—looking into why people went into medicine, what it is they envisioned happening, what really happened, and why there’s a gap there.
Sometimes it’s also, you know, where are you now, and where is it that you want to go? Why isn’t it aligning with your vision? Once we identify those things, it’s about identifying what’s important to them, what their values are, and what their “why” is. Then we figure out what skills and changes are needed to get them to their ultimate destination.
Dr. Barbara Hales: Are these people who are hospital-based, or are they in practice? Or is it just a variety?
Dr. Ben Reinking: Just a variety. I would say I’ve worked with a few people right out of residency and training, who get into their first full-time job and realize, “Wow, this is very different than I anticipated, and I need to figure out how I can work in this environment.”
Other people are, you know, 10–20 years into their careers. They’ve been with the same employer or in their private practice and just need to make a change, but aren’t sure how to make that pivot.
Challenges and Changes
Dr. Barbara Hales: If you were to do anything different in your career, would there be any changes?
Dr. Ben Reinking: Oh, gosh, yeah, absolutely. I think the first thing is, I probably would have asked more questions when I started—not about the medicine. I was always focused on learning how to take care of patients and get the work of being a clinician done.
I would have focused a little bit more on how to work in the healthcare system and how to lead teams effectively. We spend a lot of time learning how to communicate with our patients, deliver bad news to our patients, and deal with a patient who’s struggling. We don’t spend much time learning how to do that with our colleagues. I wish I would have had those skills earlier in my career.
Dr. Barbara Hales: When you were coming up the ranks, or when you left the hospital initially, did you yourself have a mentor?
Dr. Ben Reinking: I did, yeah. I had several mentors. I had some really good mentors, and some mentors that weren’t so great.
Dr. Barbara Hales: And were any of the coaches there for you in terms of helping you to promote yourself?
Dr. Ben Reinking: That’s a great question. I think, looking back, many of my mentors early in my career were very supportive, but they tended to steer me toward things that they were also interested in. It was rare that I met—and in fact, I didn’t have—a mentor who really sat me down and said, “Now, what is it that you want to do, and how do we get you there?”
It was more like, “Well, this is what I think we should do together.” Sometimes I wound up doing things that, in retrospect, probably weren’t the best for my career. But I did learn from them, and they helped me in some way—though probably helped my mentor a little bit more.
Dr. Barbara Hales: Well, in those days, there probably was minimal help or recognition of the need for coaching.
Dr. Ben Reinking: I think that’s very true. I like that you brought up mentoring because the philosophy around mentoring and coaching is very different. In a mentoring relationship, it’s the mentor who has the power and drives the relationship. In a coaching relationship or partnership, it’s really the person being coached who has the power and drives the direction. I’ve tried to take that philosophy into my more traditional mentoring roles as well, because I think it’s beneficial to give people free rein to guide their careers.
Dr. Barbara Hales: At this point, we’d like to ask if you have two or three tips that you would give our listeners that they could implement right away.
Dr. Ben Reinking: Yeah, yeah, my first tip that I always think of: if you have a thought in your head and you think, “I can’t do this,” or, “I should do this…” Let’s start with “I can’t do this.” My tip is to ask why. Is that a fact, or is it just a thought in your head that maybe you’ve learned out of habit because of the patterns you’ve had for so long? Challenge that. So, my first question is to ask why when you run up against a barrier and you’re saying, “I can’t do that.”
My second tip would be: don’t be afraid of the pivot. Sometimes those pivots are big. It might mean leaving your job, leaving clinical medicine, or doing something entirely different—a big, disruptive change, almost. But many times, those things that are different are just little, tiny daily changes.
An example of one I did over the summer was going outside to eat my lunch for 15 minutes rather than sitting in front of my desk to eat lunch. It’s amazing how sometimes those little changes can make a big difference in your day.
Dr. Barbara Hales: Oh, absolutely. Do any of your clients come to you and specifically say or ask, “Should I stay in medicine with all of the new transitions that are going on, or should I just seek an alternate career?”
Dr. Ben Reinking: You know, I think, honestly, that’s probably a big question that, if it’s not directly asked, it’s in the background, kind of underlying some of the questions people are asking. “Is this the right fit for me?” Absolutely. “Should I stay, should I go, or should I work differently?”
Dr. Barbara Hales: Well, nowadays, I think that is probably in the back of every doctor’s mind.
Dr. Ben Reinking: Absolutely.
Final Tips for Listeners
Dr. Barbara Hales: Well, is there anything else that you would like to tell our listeners today?
Dr. Ben Reinking: Yeah. If you’re curious about coaching and you’re just hesitant—either because of the time commitment or the cost, which some people see as a barrier—I encourage you to find a coach and just book a free consult call. It doesn’t have to be me; it can be any physician coach out there. Just explore the idea of coaching a little bit if you’re looking for a change and you’re not sure where to turn.
I also have an online course that I’d love for people to check out. I designed it specifically for people who are curious about coaching but maybe hesitant to share things with someone they don’t know well. It’s an online coaching process that’s self-driven and a good way to get introduced to coaching if you’re interested in it.
Dr. Barbara Hales: That’s great. So you have the modules listed online so they know what the course covers, correct?
Dr. Ben Reinking: Yeah. There are eight modules. Each module has between two and six different lessons, and the topics are clearly listed.
Dr. Barbara Hales: Has that been popular for you? Or is that something you just launched?
Dr. Ben Reinking: It’s a brand-new thing, but I’ve gotten some good feedback so far.
Dr. Barbara Hales: Well, good luck with that.
Dr. Ben Reinking: Thank you.
Dr. Barbara Hales: Is there a name for that course?
Dr. Ben Reinking: It’s Master in Wellness: How to Thrive as a Physician, and you can find it at courses.thedevelopingdoctor.com.
Dr. Barbara Hales: Excellent. Well, it was wonderful having you here today. I’m sure my listeners have been at the edge of their seat, gleaning everything that you had to say.
Dr. Ben Reinking: Thank you so much, Dr. Hales. I really appreciate you sharing your platform with me. It’s been wonderful.
Dr. Barbara Hales: This has been another episode of Marketing Tips for Doctors with your host, Dr. Barbara Hales. Till next time!
