Why the Best Physicians Are Coachable
The Surgeon Who Asked for Notes
I once worked with a cardiac surgeon who, after thirty years of practice, still asked a junior colleague to observe her in the OR and give her feedback. Not on clinical technique. On how she communicated with the team during high-stress moments.
She didn't need the feedback. She was already one of the most respected physicians in her department. But she wanted it. That distinction matters more than most people think.
Coachability Is a Performance Strategy
There is a reason Atul Gawande's now-famous New Yorker article on coaching resonated so deeply in medicine. Gawande didn't argue that struggling doctors need coaches. He argued that good doctors plateau without them. The best get better because they stay open to input long after they've earned the right to stop listening.
That openness is coachability. It is not a personality trait you are born with. It is a decision you make over and over: to treat your own development as unfinished business, no matter how far along you are.
What Coachable Actually Looks Like
In academic medicine, coachability shows up in small, specific ways:
- Asking a colleague how a presentation landed instead of assuming it went well
- Telling your coach the real reason you are frustrated, not the polished version
- Trying a new approach to a recurring conflict even when the old one feels safer
- Hearing critical feedback without immediately explaining why the other person is wrong
None of that requires you to be passive or agreeable. It requires honesty and a tolerance for discomfort. Carol Dweck's research on growth mindset shows that this tolerance is what separates people who keep developing from people who stall out after early success.
Why It Accelerates Everything
Coachable physicians move faster. Not because they work harder, but because they waste less time defending positions that are not working. They course-correct sooner. They absorb lessons from mentors, peers, and even trainees without their ego filtering out the useful parts.
I have watched this play out dozens of times. Two faculty members with identical credentials start coaching at the same time. The one who shows up willing to be honest about what is not working makes more progress in three months than the other makes in a year.
The Takeaway
Being coachable is not about humility for its own sake. It is a competitive advantage. The best physicians I have worked with are not the ones who arrived with all the answers. They are the ones who kept asking better questions.
If this resonates, check out our individual coaching to see how we can help.
