Promoting Success: A Professional Development Coaching Program for Interns in Medicine

Abstract

Background: Residency is an intense period. Challenges, including burnout, arise as new physicians develop their professional identities. Residency programs provide remediation, but emotional support for interns is often limited. Professional development coaching of interns, regardless of their performance, has not been reported.

Objective: Design, implement, and evaluate a program to support intern professional development through positive psychology coaching.

Methods: We implemented a professional development coaching program in a large residency program. The program included curriculum development, coach-intern interactions, and evaluative metrics. A total of 72 internal medicine interns and 26 internal medicine faculty participated in the first year. Interns and coaches were expected to meet quarterly; expected time commitments per year were 9 hours (per individual coached) for coaches, 5 1/2 hours for each individual coachee, and 70 hours for the director of the coaching program. Coaches and interns were asked to complete 2 surveys in the first year and to participate in qualitative interviews.

Results: Eighty-two percent of interns met with their coaches 3 or more times. Coaches and their interns assessed the program in multiple dimensions (participation, program and professional activities, burnout, coping, and coach-intern communication). Most of the interns (94%) rated the coaching program as good or excellent, and 96% would recommend this program to other residency programs. The experience of burnout was lower in this cohort compared with a prior cohort.

Conclusions: There is early evidence that a coaching program of interactions with faculty trained in positive psychology may advance intern development and partially address burnout.