Life Changing Moments: Finding Yourself Through Change, Dr. Mrunal Shah

jodyhanks
Jan 22, 2024
2 min read

Updated: Feb 4, 2024

The CE experience for this Podcast is powered by CMEfy – click here to reflect and earn credits: https://earnc.me/EcPBei

Have you ever been in a job that seemed to be a good idea when you took it, but over time became obvious that it wasn’t a good fit?

Today’s guest is Dr. Mrunal Shah who exactly this. Dr. Shah is a family physician who has held several roles in healthcare ranging from clinician, residency faculty, health technology, medical informatics, chief medical officer during COVID, by the way, and coaching and leadership development.He is also the newest physician coach at MD Coaches.

So, if you find yourself in perhaps the wrong role, and would love to talk with someone who’s been there, reach out to us at mymdcoaches.com

This Episode is brought to you today by Eagle Financial Group.

Eagle Financial Group is here to help you understand your numbers to make wise decisions.From fractional CFO services to accounting, bookkeeping, and payroll, Eagle financial group is your partner to ensure that your practice keeps on serving your patients, and gives you more time to spend with your family and friends.

It’s time that you overcome your obstacles, and get control of your financial life today. Give Eagle Financial Group a call at 719-755-0043, drop us an email at clientservices@eaglefsg.com, or visit us on line at eaglefsg.com

Are you a doctor struggling to provide the best care for your patients while dealing with financial and caregiving matters out of the scope of your practice?

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Access the Show Transcript Here

LCM 35: Finding Yourself Through Change: Dr. Mrunel Shah

Dr. Shah discusses job dissatisfaction among physicians, emphasizing the importance of finding the right fit and seeking support. They highlight the role of physician leaders during technology implementation and promote the MD Coaches community.

2024, Dr. Dael WaxmanLife Changing Moments

Produced by Clawson Solutions Group (www.csolgroup.com)

Generated Shownotes

Chapters

0:00:00 Job Dissatisfaction: Identifying the Reasons 0:01:37 Life-Changing Moments: A Journey Begins 0:02:11 Introduction and Setting the Stage 0:06:18 Shifting to Chief Medical Officer Role 0:10:26 Introducing Eagle Financial Group: Your Financial Partner 0:11:27 Virtual Caregiver Conference: All-in-One Solution for Doctors 0:13:03 Using IT to Improve Patient Care 0:15:47 Struggling with the Gap Between Physician and Administrator 0:20:50 Introduction to Physician Outlook magazine 0:22:00 Murnau’s Emotional Journey 0:24:07 Seeking Help and Guidance from Mentors and Coaches 0:30:53 Coaching: Overcoming Challenges and Finding Purpose 0:39:21 Reminded of Purpose: Meeting Inspiring Physicians 0:41:24 The Power of Listening and Caring in Medicine and Administration 0:43:11 Rate us five stars and leave a review.

Long Summary

In this conversation, Dr. Dale Waxman speaks with Dr. Murnall Shah, a physician with experience in clinical leadership positions. They explore the various aspects of job dissatisfaction among physicians and the importance of differentiating between being a physician in an administrative role versus being an administrator who happens to be a physician. Recognizing when a position is not the right fit is crucial, and seeking support, including from a coach, can greatly help in navigating this situation.

Dr. Shah shares his career journey, which started in IT where he developed patient care platforms. His background as a physician allowed him to create technology that made sense to fellow physicians. He then transitioned to the role of Chief Medical Officer, which involved implementing Epic, an electronic health record system.

The conversation also touches on the significance of physician leaders when implementing Epic’s model. These leaders act as liaisons between physicians and technical teams, prioritizing the physician’s perspective rather than solely focusing on technical aspects. Dr. Waxman shares their own experience working in the analytics environment and the need to shift mindset from a physician in an administrative role to being an administrator who is also a physician. The alignment of professional identity with expectations and roles is emphasized.

Dr. Waxman reflects on their own emotional journey and the challenges experienced when sharing their story. They highlight the importance of having mentors, confidants, and a coach for support and guidance during difficult times. Seeking help and not being afraid to face struggles head-on is essential. The CMO and vice president medical affairs positions were ultimately the best jobs Dr. Waxman ever had due to finding a better fit.

The conversation also delves into the role of mentors, sponsors, and coaches in helping to discover one’s strengths and purpose. Dr. Waxman emphasizes building relationships based on trust and seeking guidance from mentors and sponsors within the organization. Coaching plays a crucial role in defining goals and finding purpose.

Dr. Waxman discusses their previous role as a coach and how it prepared them for their current position as a CMO. They stress the importance of listening and caring in both medical and administrative roles, as it fosters trust and connection with patients and colleagues. They express excitement to be a part of the MD Coaches team and give back to others in the same way they were supported.

As the conversation wraps up, Dr. Waxman expresses gratitude to the host and looks forward to future collaborations and continued learning. The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to rate and review the podcast and join the MD Coaches community on Facebook.

Brief Summary

In this conversation, we explore the complexities of job dissatisfaction among physicians with Dr. Murnall Shah, a physician with experience in clinical leadership. We discuss the importance of recognizing when a position isn’t the right fit and seeking support, including from a coach. Dr. Shah shares their career journey in IT and as a Chief Medical Officer. We emphasize the significance of physician leaders during technology implementation and the role of mentors, sponsors, and coaches in finding purpose. I express excitement about being part of the MD Coaches team and encouraging listeners to rate, review, and join the MD Coaches community on Facebook.

Transcript

Job Dissatisfaction: Identifying the Reasons

[0:00] Have you ever been in a job that seemed to be a good idea when you took it, but over time became a significant dissatisfier in your life?And when examining why, you found it difficult to pinpoint the reasons it wasn’t working for you?

[0:16] Well, my guest on today’s podcast, a physician with an affinity for clinical leadership positions, experienced exactly this when he advanced into one of those positions. physicians.Dr. Murnall Shah is a family physician who has held several roles in healthcare ranging from clinician, residency faculty, health technology, medical informatics, chief medical officer during COVID, by the way, and coaching and leadership development.He is also the newest physician coach at MD Coaches, the sponsor of this podcast and was last week’s guest on RX for Success with Dr. Randy Cook.In the conversation that follows, Dr. Shah and I talk about the importance of differentiating between being a physician in an administrative role and being an administrator who happens to be a physician, how to recognize if the position you’re in is not the right fit and what not to do when you discover this, then who to turn to, including a coach, and what to discuss when you become aware of the bad fit. And finally, Dr.Shah gives us two simple and effective tools for success and fulfillment in any position for any occupation. Stay tuned.

Life-Changing Moments: A Journey Begins

[1:37] There are times in our lives that change the way we see the world.Navigating these challenges can can take insight, trusted confidants, or even a coach. Let’s explore those moments.In this companion podcast to Rx for Success, we will discover ways to learn and write our own success stories together.I’m Dr. Dale Waxman, a physician coach with MD Coaches, and this is Life-Changing Moments.

[2:06] Music.

Introduction and Setting the Stage

[2:11] So, Dr. Murnal Shah, welcome to Life-Changing Moments. It’s good to have you.Thank you, Dr. Waxman. Glad to be here today.Yeah, well, if it’s okay, we’ll call each other by first names if that’s okay.So, last week, the Rx for Success podcast with Randy Cook, you were discussing your career trajectory and something sort of piqued my interest and you and I have just had a a little bit of a conversation about that, about that part of your career that went from IT to CMO to a listener is like, how do you go from there to there?And then you said, well, there’s actually really a story there.And I wonder if we can dive into that, if that’d be okay with you.Absolutely, Dale. I’d love to share what I learned along the way.So let’s just kind of back for people who might not have heard last week.

[3:01] What did the IT position, what was that like, first of all? What was going on with that?Yeah. So this was back in a time when what we knew is that IT was going to be very important to patient care.What we didn’t know is exactly how that was going to work. So this is back in that early timeframe.What they wanted, the team in the IS department and the leadership at Ohio Health, what they wanted was a physician who could help lead teams and be the liaison between physicians and technology development.So a role was created, and it was an opportunity for me to be, and this will be important later, a physician working in IT to help support the development of platforms to enable patient care.Gotcha. And I’m assuming platforms includes electronic health record.

[3:48] So we had our own platform. This was before Epic, and it started off as a resulting system.But then as we started opening hospitals and a digital platform, we we needed to create workflow tools.So our own team developed their own workflow tools using this online technology that they had.And it allowed physicians then to interact with the patient’s record, create documentation, but to do it in a way that physicians think, and then create documentation that physicians could use.Wow. It sounds like you were really central to the creation of that.It was a really, really fun opportunity for me. And it allowed me to be a physician first, who could work with the technology teams to develop a platform that made sense to physicians.So I had physician advisors that worked with me. I had a team of 20 plus developers and business analysts and QA folks on the IT side.And it allowed us to very quickly create technologies and within the technology platforms that allow physicians to document, communicate and do patient workflow in a way that physicians think. Okay.Yeah. Just a little bit of a digression, Murnal, if you don’t mind.You know, one of the critiques of a lot of electronic health record products, I know you heard this when you listened to other physicians, was, you know, who designed this? Obviously, this was not designed by a physician.And here you are, you were central to the design of this because you knew how physicians think. Absolutely.

[5:14] It’s the benefit of being able to do something in your own environment, you know, prior to making a move like Epic or there’s a CERN or there’s a couple of large EMR vendors that are out there.Prior to making the move to those things, some health systems try to make their own or develop something that their physicians could use. So that was really how this platform was born.And it was an opportunity for us to say, how much can we digitize on our own and build hospitals that are digital and then convert other hospitals to being digital?

[5:42] Ironically, our physicians and the other medical staffs actually wanted us to bring this technology to their hospitals, which is a little bit unique.That’s not typically how those deployments go. But I think they saw that because physicians were involved in the design and development of it, and it wasn’t just me. It was a whole group of physician advocates that I had on this advisory group.The platform made sense to physicians, and they thought it could actually help them with their day, with their documentation, and with their workflow through the day.And so they requested to actually have it moved to their hospitals.It was definitely a unique situation.

Shifting to Chief Medical Officer Role

[6:18] Yeah, very, very rewarding and validating for you, I’d imagine, too.I loved it. Loved it. So let’s kind of move forward then. So then there is this shift from that to chief medical officer, which there can be some overlap, but that seems like a pretty significant shift.Can you say more about what transpired?Yeah. So this is where it will get, it’s almost like I’m going to slow time down a little bit. I’m going to talk about a couple of steps that happened there.The first and most important step is that a decision was made to move to Epic, which most large health systems in the country made that decision about that timeframe.

[6:55] That decision being made, physician leadership in the model that Epic creates, it’s important that they have physicians who are not technically savvy savvy to be the leaders, the face of, and the sort of the liaisons between the physician world and the technical teams.And those physicians need to be seen as physicians first, not technical, and they can help drive change then both within the medical community, as well as on the deployment of the technology.

[7:24] That would create some opportunities for a couple of physician colleagues that I had who were not as technical as the work I was doing.And it gave them a chance to be our physician leaders on the epic side of deployment what we also knew we wanted as a as a health system was big data you know a data warehouse a data analytics creating an environment where we collect data and then answer questions based on that data that could help drive either clinical quality financial opportunities or other aspects of healthcare development and And in that space, it was felt that my background, my experience, and certainly my interest and desire in wanting to continue to push forward in the technical world allowed for an opportunity for me to work in that space for a couple of years.So before I made the move to CMO, I was actually our physician leader over the analytics environment for Ohio Health.What was challenging about that, and this is where I’m just going to zoom all the way into how it felt for me because the technology and that stuff almost wasn’t really what I learned from all this.What I realized is that I had to shift my mindset from being a physician who happened to be in an administrative role.

[8:39] To being an administrator who happened to be a physician no that sounds like it should be the same but it actually ended up becoming a bit of an identity crisis for me in that role because i was starting to feel like i wasn’t a physician first i don’t know how much of that was my own doing how much of that was expectation from the organization how much of that was the the development of the team that i needed to create in order to do that work and which mind i needed to use in order to drive that work.That professional identity, and that was something you and I chatted briefly in preparation for this, but professional identity to me has become one of the things that I find really important.It’s important to know what’s important to you.What identity do you want to have? What are the things that drive you?What’s your purpose in the work that you do?How does that help you create your professional identity?How do you want to to be seen? How do you want to be understood?What do you want to be thought of? Those aspects are really important.

[9:38] And there’s this idea of professional identity dissonance that can happen when as the leader who’s trying to do that work has a professional identity that I want to maintain or create or develop, but it’s different in some way than the professional identity that is either needed for the role or the professional identity that those in leadership are looking for.And if not managed in the right way and not talked about and thought through in the right way, it actually creates almost an erosion of skill, trust, purpose, identity in and of itself, but really the joy of the work that you’re trying to accomplish.And that was happening while I was trying to do that work.

Introducing Eagle Financial Group: Your Financial Partner

[10:26] Today’s episode is brought to you by eagle financial group eagle financial group is here to help you understand your numbers and to make wise decisions whether it’s fractional cfo services accounting bookkeeping payroll or tax strategies and preparation eagle financial group is your partner to ensure that your practice keeps on serving your patients and gives you more time to spend with your family and friends.It’s time that you overcome your obstacles and get control of your financial life today.Give Eagle Financial Group a call at 719-755-0043.Drop us an email at clientservicesateaglefsg.com or visit us online at eaglefsg.com.We are a proud sponsor of the MD Coaches family of podcasts.

Virtual Caregiver Conference: All-in-One Solution for Doctors

[11:27] Are you a doctor struggling to provide the best care for your patients while dealing with financial and caregiving matters out of the scope of your practice?Do you find yourself scrambling to keep up with the latest resources and wish there was an easier way?Then this virtual caregiver conference will save you time, money, and sanity by giving you all the resources and information your patients need in one place.This conference helps you and your patients enlist the best strategies around healthcare resources and the best financial steps for your patients while navigating caregiving situations.You don’t have to go home feeling frustrated and helpless because you couldn’t connect your patients with the best services.Find out more at rxforsuccesspodcast.com slash conference, or click the link in the show notes.We look forward to seeing you at the caregiver conference.

[12:19] Bernal, you obviously have done a lot of of introspection about that time in your life and have some ways to describe what was going on.For me and our listeners, would you be willing to give an example of what it’s like to be a physician who happens to have an administrative role?Give us an example of that and then give us an example of the other one, the administrator who has a role but happens to be a physician.So let’s start with the first one.So you’re the IT guy, but you’re a physician first and then the IT guy second.So what’s an example of that?

Using IT to Improve Patient Care

[13:03] Yeah, that’s a great way to look at that.When I was in the IT role as the physician technology executive, I would often take our IT team on rounds with me in the hospital.And it was a way for me to show them how they, in the world of IT, were actually helping take care of patients.They might not always see it, but it gives me a chance to say, look, this is what your technology is doing to enable patient care.But it allowed me to be the physician first, who was helping them to design the technology that supports that workflow.As I sit in meetings with medical executive committees at the hospitals that I worked with, it allowed me to spring from, look, as a physician rounding in the hospital, this is what I saw. What do you see?Or as I think about the deployment of CPOE or computerized physician order entry.Yes, there’s a lot of challenges associated with it, but this is what it looked like for me as I was trying to take care of patients with it.Here’s how I let it help me make better decisions. I use that as an example, but it allowed me to lead physician first.

[14:07] As I made the move and transition into the analytics space, that’s a much more ethereal area, especially back then, We didn’t even really know what we didn’t know.And so it was hard to be in those meetings with physicians and create tangible connections between what they’re trying to do day to day and the development of a data warehouse or data analytic capabilities because it felt out there, a little further out there, a little, again, ethereal and harder to connect from what physicians are doing every day to what are we trying to build with this analytic environment.And I think admittedly.

[14:46] Is where I was struggling. And so I would sit in my technical meetings and being a physician almost didn’t help me in those discussions.I actually had to learn a lot more about the technology and I had to wade way further into the water about what are the technological challenges that we’re going to run into and this investment in this platform versus the investment in this platform and how they may not talk to each other.All those things, which I did not have to really think about prior, now I’m in a situation where I do have to think about those things.And it wasn’t about being a physician. It was about being an administrator.And admittedly, that pull away from being physician-minded first.

[15:30] Mostly probably my own discomfort in being a highly technical administrator, and maybe not having the skill set, the background, around the training, the education in order to really be able to do that, that created that gap for me between physician and administrator.

Struggling with the Gap Between Physician and Administrator

[15:47] And in the latter role, being an administrator who happened to be a physician, meaning it didn’t quite help me the way I thought it would help me in that role to be a physician.Does that make sense? Yes, it does. Very clear. And I’m curious, Do you have a recollection of when you first began noticing this tension, that internal tension of what came to be known to you as your professional identity?

[16:16] Yeah, there’s a couple of things that really stand out to me.One, as we were leading meetings with senior administrators, it became harder and harder for me to feel like I was coming from a place of expertise or experience in those conversations, which I think left the audience also maybe a little anxious about the ability to push through that and to create technology that’s going to be able to serve purpose.Purpose, what everybody wanted it to do, this technology wasn’t going to be able to make that happen.And yet I was not really in a position to be able to explain why, or I wasn’t really able to spring from a place where I could say, I know what you’re looking for, but that’s not how this is going to work.And let me explain to you how this is going to work in order to get where we want to go.Again, so ethereal and so administrative and so technical in its knowledge set requirements, experiments, it for me created difficulty in me being able to run those meetings, lead those meetings from a place of high degree of confidence to be able to say, this is how we’re going to do it.Gotcha. It’s a part of it is there’s just a different skill set that was required and probably a pretty, pretty steep learning curve for you as well.Absolutely. In hindsight, now, as I think about this, because it was a long time ago, was I willing to put my medical degree aside side for a little while.

[17:41] And say, I’m going to focus on becoming an analytics expert.And therein lies, I think, where I felt most uncomfortable, maybe most in the gap in that space between physician and administrator, because I had to almost pick one.And I wasn’t really willing to pick administrator over physician.It’s a me thing, but I think that’s where I got stuck.Well, it is a me thing, but the me thing is very much centered around what gives you meaning for your professional path.And there’s this image of one foot in the field of clinical, I’m a physician, I think like a physician, and one foot in this very foreign world that’s not like anything you learned in medical school.And there’s this, in retrospect, sounds like there’s this opportunity to have said, you know, I’m going to sort of let the physician, I’m going to close the door on that for just a little while so I can really steep myself in here.But that just wasn’t you at the time is what it sounds like.It really wasn’t. But in hindsight, you’re absolutely right, Dale.If I had to do it over again, that would have been the thing to think about.Number one, prior to taking the job, asking myself, does this further.

[18:59] My purpose and what I want to be able to do in taking care of the healthcare community, patients, the communities that we serve?Is this my best way of being able to do this as we go forward?If so, it may require to put that medical degree aside for a bit, learn what I need to learn in order to be a really good technical administrator, an analytics administrator.I can always bring the medical degree back somewhere in the future.Or if I said no, no, that maybe this isn’t where I think I can deliver my best work in serving the community in the way that I feel most connected to my professional identity, then I could have been much more intentional at that point and said, okay, I’m in a fork in the road.Now, how might I use that fork in the road to pick my next step that furthers me down the path of my own purpose?

[19:48] Hi, I’m Rhonda Crowe, founder and CEO for MD Coaches.Here on Rx for Success, We interview a lot of great medical professionals on how they grew their careers, how they overcame challenges, and how they handle day-to-day work.I really hope you’re getting a lot of great information.But if you’re looking for an answer to a specific problem, management or administration challenge, or if you’re feeling just a bit burnt out, like maybe you chose the wrong career, well, then there’s a faster way to get the help you need.No, it’s not counseling. It’s coaching.

Introduction to Physician Outlook magazine

[20:50] We’ll get back to our interview in just a moment. But right now, I want to tell you a little bit about Physician Outlook.If you haven’t discovered this remarkable magazine, please do so very soon.It was created by physicians for physicians to showcase the intersection between clinical and non-clinical interests.Whether it’s writing, painting, cooking, politics, and dozens of other topics, Physician Outlook gives a physician perspective.It’s available online and in print. It’s really unique among physician lifestyle magazines, and like the Prescription for Success podcast, Physician Outlook amplifies the voice of any physician who has something to say.It also engages patients who still believe in physician-led, team-based care.And Prescription for Success listeners can get three months free when you enter our promo code RX4SUCCESS and select the monthly option at checkout. out.That’s a really great deal on this stunning publication.And now let’s get back to today’s interview.

Murnau’s Emotional Journey

[22:00] Murnau, can you say something about what this was like for you?Emotionally, mentally, psychologically, how was this for you at that time?That’s my uncomfortable laughter. I apologize. It wasn’t that long ago that for me to tell you that story would actually be very hard for me to share.But I think I’ve had a chance to really heal, learn, and grow from those experiences that I am able to share that now.It forced a lot of questions for me about my identity, what I’m good at.Am I good at this? Should I be doing this?If there was ever a moment of self-doubt in my career path, this was it.This shined the light on self-doubt and whether I was actually going to be able to do this job or not.

[22:50] And what I think I look back at now is that what it started to do is not only was there this question of what I was going to be able to learn and do as an administrator and be effective in the role, it actually started to erode who I really was because because I was almost starting to forget who I really was.What was my purpose? What should I be doing?That has a way of really bringing people down, depending on where you are going into that.If you have the emotional reserve, if you have the self-confidence and the wherewithal, it might erode at some, but you’ll be okay.I’m sure there are a lot of people out there that are like me, so I hope this resonates for some number of listeners that are out there.Uh some of us have spent most of our lives wondering if we’re doing enough if we are enough if we’re delivering enough uh are we smart enough are we strong enough are we you know fast enough all those things that can come come into play and all it takes is an experience like this to really challenge what you think about yourself and that that was where i as the journey started started to unfold, it was an erosion of self-confidence, self-worth and confidence in my ability to be able to do that work.

Seeking Help and Guidance from Mentors and Coaches

[24:07] That forced me then to start asking questions, not only of myself, but those that I trust.

[24:14] Confidants, sponsors, mentors, found a coach along the way that actually ended up being very helpful to me.I had coaches several times in my career pathway, but they all served a different reason and a different purpose along the way.And this was one of those times where it helped me to overcome this in the way that I needed to overcome at the time.And I look to all of those other folks as what would I have done without them?How would I have seen the path without them?

[24:39] And I don’t want to fast forward too quickly. Let me stop there and see what questions that brings about from that period and then I can go on from there.Yeah, well, thank you, Myrna, because I do have some questions about that.And really, in service of listeners, many of us, and I have my own story that’s similar, where I was so mired in the work that I didn’t pay attention to the signs and symptoms that I’m not on my professional path.It’s when I really, really reached a level of not functioning very well that I realized something has to change.So, what I’m interested in is what showed up for you that said, I need to do something different. I need to examine this in a different way.What, you know, for lack of a better term clinically, what symptoms were there?What did people around you that you love and care about say to you that may have pushed you to begin doing this self-exam and say, okay, something’s not quite right here.I need to be thinking about this in a little bit different way.I’ll start personally, actually. I’ll start with my wife and my older daughter at the time. This was a long time ago.Not sleeping through the night, finding myself having difficulty falling asleep at night or waking up in the middle of the night, which was really more of my notorious problem.And so it became a little bit of a joke in the house until it really wasn’t a joke, but, you know, dad being up at two o’clock in the morning was fairly common, or husband being up at two o’clock in the morning was fairly common. And so my wife was…

[26:09] Starting to wonder, you know, are you sure you’re okay? Is everything all right?I couldn’t turn my mind off. I couldn’t find that peace to say that I can end my day, I can sleep and I can wake up tomorrow and go at it again.It was on my mind and it was getting in my way.The other thing I think that it manifested, and I think this is probably true with family, friends, and even professionally, I consider myself a very patient person.And over my lifetime, that’ll be the thing that I think most people would say about me is that I’m patient and I’m thoughtful and I care and I listen to people.But there was that window of time that I can think back to this where actually I don’t think that’s how I was behaving.I wasn’t patient and I wasn’t always listening. And I don’t know that I was always kind.And it manifested then in, I would say, behaving in ways that I think people that know and love me would say, you okay, man? Is everything all right?

[27:02] And this was a long time ago. Was that burnout? Was it depression?Yeah, I think it was all of that. Being a physician, I’m a terrible patient, so I probably didn’t ask the right people those kinds of questions.And we didn’t have the kinds of services that we have now.And maybe we’ve broken some stigma along the way as well to say, you know, it’s okay.

[27:20] It’s okay not to be okay. And it’s okay to ask for help. But anyway, that’s how that manifested, I think, very personally.And then I think professionally, it manifested as people wondering if I was confident about what I was saying.The answer, the truth was, no, I wasn’t. But instead of just saying, look, I’m not sure if this is the best thing to do, but it feels like the right thing to do.And this is why I might try to make it sound like I was more confident in it than I thought I really was.Or I might say things that then even myself, I’d be like, well, that didn’t even totally make sense.Maybe I need to go back and unpack this a little bit more. But, you know, I work with really, really smart people.And so some would look at that and say, well, I’m not sure if what he’s saying is what we should be doing. I had others who said, are you okay?Because it’s not normal for me to be springing from a place where I don’t feel completely confident in doing what I’m doing.Because the years prior in IT, we did some really great stuff.And I was really confident in the work that I was doing there.And this didn’t feel the same. So I think the symptoms for me were not sleeping, irritability, shortness, maybe almost being impatient, but also not having confidence in the way that I was delivering what I was working on or being able to instill confidence in those around me that what we’re working on is the right thing to work on and not being able to get there.And that to me, those were some of the things that manifested for me is I don’t think I’m doing the right work. I don’t think I’m doing what I should be doing.And this just doesn’t feel right to me. I’m putting this jacket on. It doesn’t fit.

[28:50] Yeah. Thank you, Mernal. I appreciate your ability to, it’s vulnerable to be able to say this is what was going on for me.And I wasn’t at my highest level of competence.I really appreciate you sharing that. Yeah.Was there a moment or moments where you said to yourself, okay, this isn’t working.So here’s my next step to discover what do I need to be doing with this?And what do I need to be doing differently? Or where do I go next?Because you mentioned a little bit ago that you had some mentors and some coaches.And so was there a moment or moments when you said, okay, I need to reach out to so-and-so? Yeah.

[29:33] I’ll tell you one thing that I did learn, and this is one thing not to do, but it manifested in becoming the thing that helped me actually get where I needed to go.What you shouldn’t do is run from a job. Meaning if something’s not working, if it’s not a good fit, and if you start looking around, okay, what if I did this? What if I did that? Maybe ask them, maybe I go there.You’re running away from the problem, but you’re not really dealing with the real problem, that problem is not really what you’re fixing by going to another job.And so what not to do is to run away from something.But what I did have a chance to do is in the process, those that I trusted as my mentors and my sponsors, I was able to sit down and say, I am struggling.This doesn’t fit right. I don’t feel like I’m doing what I should be doing, but I don’t know where to go from here.I don’t know what does the next step look like. and through, I would think, we don’t have to use names here in our podcast, but there were a few people that really stood out.And to this day are people that I will look back at and say, thank you.Because not only did you hear me, you saw me, you were curious about me, and you offered up perspective, questions, things that pushed me to consider what should I be doing?The coach that I worked with at that point, then we had data points from all of these other people that were giving me things to think about.

Coaching: Overcoming Challenges and Finding Purpose

[30:53] That I could work with my coach and say, this is where I’m struggling.And my coach being able to say, all right, Manal, here’s what we’re going to do. Today, we’re going to talk about this.Some of it was really hard. Some of it was stuff that I would just as soon.

[31:06] Nope, not today, put it in a bag, we’ll deal with it later, which she would not let me do, by the way.It forced me to work through those challenges that I needed to work through.And in so doing, the right next set of opportunities actually presented themselves not as an escape, but rather as a better match for what I believe my purpose was starting to unfold as.And I was asked to consider the CMO role and the vice president medical affairs chief medical officer for a couple of our hospitals as not as a respite opportunity, or even a, like I said, not running away or trying to distance myself from another role, but rather to say, this really feels like it would fit your purpose better.And while the work was harder it was really hard work that might have been the toughest job i’d ever have had in my career it was definitely the best job i ever had i learned so much about me about medicine about physicians about health care about finance about running hospitals about the community it was an awesome job for me but what the first step i had to take, was not to run away, but to figure out what I was running towards.Yeah. So just to be clear, the best job was the CMO job, not the data analytics job. That’s right. Yeah.And there’s so many words of wisdom that you had in that process of discovery.

[32:28] With mentors and sponsors and coaches.Curious question, were any of the people that you were connecting with that helped you, that pointed some things out to you, Were they inside your system or were they outside the system or a combination?That’s a really good question. I would say they were mostly inside the system.Maybe I’d worked with them in different capacities for different reasons along the way, and they had their own formulated impressions of what they thought were my strengths.But it allowed for the conversation from a place of, I want you to figure out what you love to do, and let’s get you moving in the right direction for what you love to do.It may or may not be in the organization, but we got to help you figure out what’s a really good, what should you be doing, and then help you get there.So I want to just point out for listeners how much you must have trusted your colleagues to be able to share what was going on with you.And that these were colleagues that really were invested in you doing well, whether that was in or outside the organization. organization.And the reason I say that is that takes vulnerability, it takes risks.A lot of people that I know that I’ve worked with in coaching say, well, I can’t talk to anybody in my own system about this. I don’t want them to know that I’m struggling here.

[33:46] And so I just want to point that out that you did it anyway, you leaned into it anyway.And that speaks to something about those relationships that you had.Yeah, Dale, I think that’s a really good call out. I think it would have been really hard had I not had the opportunity to develop some of these relationships that were really based on a very solid foundation of trust.And out of the hundreds of people that maybe I could have talked with, there were two or three that I felt really comfortable talking to about this.And so I think if in there is some advice that, you know, I would consider for myself and maybe listeners might think about is don’t be so afraid to be looking within your organization for mentors and sponsors and potentially coaches that could be of service to you.Start with the relationship. Build trust.Know that there are people out there that would be interested in helping to support you because of who you are, because of what you want to do, because of what you represent.And once you find a few of those people know who they are and put yourself out there, let them know how you’re doing, let them know how you’re feeling and ask for help.Had I not done that, I’m actually not sure what the trajectory would have looked like for me, both professionally and overall.I don’t know what would have potentially happened, but I do know that I’m grateful that having had a few people that I could trust.

[35:08] Within the organization that I could say, I just need some honest feedback. I need help.And it wasn’t feedback like, oh, you need to speak differently or you need to wear a different tie.It was when all this is not a good fit for you. I can feel it.I can see it. How do we help you find the right fit?Yeah. That’s awesome that you had to be also invested in it too.That’s the other side of this. As you said, on some level, this was, I need this for me to have a trust and relationship with some people.You talked about the impact of coaching. You also talked about it was not easy.There were some very difficult moments of coaching.If you had to encapsulate in a few sentences about how coaching assisted you with.

[35:51] Moving on to something that was much better fit for you, what would be some of the things that happened in coaching that enabled you to really be back on your path?I’ve described this to others before as this analogy, coaching in that scenario was removing the fog from the mirror, letting me see what was really going, not proceeding or thinking I knew what was going on, but to really be able to look in the mirror and see what’s going on from somebody who doesn’t do what I do.And the coach in this scenario is markedly different in their role than a mentor or a sponsor.

[36:34] And that coach really was about shining the light, about putting up the mirror, making sure that we remove the fog from the mirror to ensure that I could see really clearly where were things eroding for me? Where was my purpose in all of this?How will I redefine? She used the word steel rods.That was her mindset was, where are your steel rods? Right right now, I think they’ve been eroded. Let’s go find them again.And let’s stand them back up so that you can work from those steel rods to do what you need to do going forward.And she not being an expert in the industry, not being a physician, not even being an administrator, she was technically from the outside, but she was a coach working with the organization. So knew the organization quite intimately.She was able to shine a light. And even when you say, I don’t want to look at that through the mirror, she says, if you’re going to get better.

[37:22] You got to look at that through the mirror. You got to see what I see in order for you to heal and make better and move forward.And she was right. But at the time, that was hard.Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Most of us at MD coaches have had our own coaching.So we know it can be challenging and extremely rewarding and extremely rewarding.It’s like any other sacrifice, especially those of us who are physicians have made for something that’s really gratifying on the other side of that.About how long was the coaching engagement?

[37:55] I think I worked with her about six, eight months, right around the time when I started thinking about what this next role that would be right for me would be.And it was an opportunity to start from there and work on the things that would help me be successful in that role.And in my coach’s mind, it was, let’s work on the steel rods and let’s build from there.And that took about, I want to say eight months. And she really got me me moving in the right direction and taught me some skills on how to do some of that looking in the mirror on my own too.Nice. And then so we know already what the outcome was at that point was to become CMO, chief medical officer.And you’ve already said that was a fantastic job.And getting back to your early language, this was this ability to go back to now having the the language.I’m a physician first, and I’m an administrator second, and this fits better for me.100%. And I mean, just to be transparent, it was a really tough job.That medical affairs role is when you’re working with medical staff that are independent and employed, when you’re working on political issues, when you’re working on peer review issues, cultural evolution, that’s the hardest work to do.Oh, and I will tell you, there were many times where I thought, I am not sure what I just jumped into.I don’t know if I made my life any better or not, but what I learned and now in hindsight, 100% in retrospect.

Reminded of Purpose: Meeting Inspiring Physicians

[39:21] I met some of the best physicians I think I’ve ever worked with in my career because they reminded me why we became physicians. Why did we do what we do?Sometimes you forget and you need some of your peers to remind you why they do it.And this was a group of physicians who made that really clear for me, why they do what they do.And I had nothing but admiration and respect for the work that we do day in and day out.It was what I needed was that dose of reminder of purpose.Yeah, neat. That is a great summation of that experience that you had.I really appreciate your slowing this down, that step in your career, slowing it down for us, really allowing us to examine that from the perspective of the internal conflict and then how you work through that.So many of us go through something like this.Sometimes it’s as difficult and challenging as what you went through and sometimes a little bit less so.So I think what I really heard was attend to the symptoms that are showing up and here are some ways to attend to that and then to be able to understand what’s going on so that you can move on.Before we close out, is there anything that we haven’t talked about with respect to this story and the lessons that you learned that you wish to impart to the listeners?

[40:40] I really appreciate you asking that, Dale. There’s one concept that I’ll never forget.Our CEO had come up to visit my hospital after I’d taken this new role, been there a couple of years, and it was visibly different for him.The culture was vastly different than where it had been in the past.And his question to me was, he said, what did you do up here?And I remember thinking, I’m probably going to have to come up with something that’s book level material.But I said, it’s actually really simple. All he did was listen and care. That was all I did.I just listened to them they just needed to be heard and they needed to know i cared about them and that was it but you know that’s what we do as physicians when patients feel like we listen.

The Power of Listening and Caring in Medicine and Administration

[41:24] Really listen to what they’re saying. Almost always they tell you the answer, right?And if we care, which why would we go into medicine if we didn’t care?If we listen and care to patients, they feel heard and they feel connection. They feel trust.They feel you are empathetic to where they are.And then we pave a pathway forward. That same mindset works as an administrator when you’re doing work that fits your purpose.

[41:50] And in hindsight, if I had done that But same listening and caring, even in the analytics role, I wonder if my experience might not have been a little bit different.But it wasn’t until I took this role at a hospital that I was reminded that that’s actually what we do and we do it really well.And if you leverage it in that moment, whether it’s a patient or a group of physicians or the hospital CEO, it doesn’t matter.You’re going to be able to do the same thing by listening and caring.So that would be one other piece that I thought was worth sharing on my journey.Those are lovely words of wisdom to end on.So, Dr. Murnal Shah, thank you so much for being a guest today on Life Changing Moments.And as I mentioned in the introduction, Dr.Shah is our newest coach in MD Coaches and glad that you’ve had this opportunity to be introduced to him as well.And Murnal, speaking for myself, I’m really looking forward to working with you in MD Coaches as well. So I really look forward to our future together and some collaborative activities and learning from each other in the way we’ve already begun learning today.I appreciate that, Dale. I’m looking forward to using this as a way for me to give back, just like what people did for me.I’d love to be able to do that for other people. So I’m really glad to be a part of this team and about the work that we’re doing. So thank you, Dale.

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[43:11] Thank you for tuning in to Life-Changing Moments. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to rate us five stars and leave a review.Doing so helps our podcast reach more listeners. Have something to share?We’d love to hear your thoughts.Visit the MD Coaches community on Facebook groups.This dynamic virtual space is a place to continue discussion about life-changing moments and perhaps share some life-changing moments of your own.Join the conversation today. you.