Burn Bright, Not Out: Coaching Protects Clinicians
By: Dr. Taryn Hill, MD, MEd, FAAP
What if I had a coach? Would coaching have prevented my own burnout?
I ask myself that question daily.
As a pediatrician practicing newborn medicine for over a decade, I remember the exact day when burnout consumed me. When you care for newborn babies, there is joy and light. It is one of the only times families enter the hospital for happiness rather than tragedy. Since I can remember as a little girl, I always had a babydoll in my arms and took great pride in caring for all my “babies”, especially swaddling them. Fast forward 35 years, and I was living my childhood dream by caring for newborns. I loved celebrating with families during one of the most joyful moments of their lives, bringing warmth, and reassurance into every room while using my medical knowledge and clinical expertise to help families give their newborns the healthiest start.
Of course, newborn care isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. There are unexpected illnesses, breastfeeding struggles and parental overwhelm. Like many newborn pediatricians, I found myself having more and more conversations confronting vaccine hesitancy, vitamin K refusal, and blatant misinformation. I had navigated hundreds of these difficult discussions with empathy, science, and patience. Yet each year post-pandemic, with the rapid growth of social media, they became more frequent and emotionally draining. Little did I know that these were the conversations and challenges that fueled my burnout. How could new parents ignore evidence-based medicine and deny their child life-saving interventions backed by decades of science?
Then came the conversation I can’t forget. A brand-new father refused vitamin K for his newborn despite a lengthy discussion detailing the devastating consequences of vitamin K deficiency bleeding. He spewed out pseudoscience with the confidence of an expert. No amount of science or compassion seemed to matter to him. He was a stone wall and adamantly refused. Until… and this story is painfully familiar to anyone working in a nursery… the OBGYN politely refused to do the circumcision unless the baby received vitamin K. Instantly, his stance changed to serve his own agenda, his medical skepticism evaporated and the injection was given within minutes.
It wasn’t relief that I felt. It was disappointment and heartbreak. Despite years of medical training and my firsthand experience with catastrophic bleeding, I had failed to change his mind. What finally did was the possibility of losing something he wanted. I looked in the mirror that day and truly questioned my purpose as a pediatrician. What good am I if I can’t persuade parents to accept essential and life-saving medical interventions for their newborn?
Looking back, I know that this conversation didn’t cause my burnout. It simply revealed it. My passion was replaced with cynicism. The light that defined my work was fading, and for the first time in my career, I knew it was time to take a break from clinical medicine. Stepping away wasn’t giving up. It was the first time I slowed down long enough to ask myself the questions I had spent years asking everyone else.
The cruel irony was that during the same season, I was successfully building a residency coaching program, publishing in peer-reviewed journals, and speaking internationally on the positive impacts of coaching. I had coached countless residents over the years to recognize their own warning signs of burnout and reconnect with their purpose. Yet I failed to recognize my own. I often wonder how differently my story might have unfolded if someone had helped me recognize the gradual shift from purpose to cynicism before it became burnout. I was the one all along who needed a coach.
Coaching indeed could have prevented my own burnout, just as it can for countless other clinicians.
The Emotional Vital Signs: Using Coaching to Protect us from Burnout
My story is not unique to physicians. Nurses face some of the toughest clinical environments that also steal their professional fulfillment and lead straight to their burnout. As clinicians, we have mastered the science of tracking instability, however we remain blind to our own exhaustion until the alarm sounds. For example, every NICU nurse knows the symphony of monitors, ticking IV pumps, and waveforms tracking every vital sign of our neonates. We monitor micro-changes with vigilance, intervening at the first hint of decline. Yet, step three feet away from that isolette, and the contrast is stark. Nurses in these demanding environments are expected to thrive without a single monitor tracking their own emotional vital signs. We ignore the steady depletion of clinicians until the alarms are blaring and burnout is inevitable.
Recent data from the 2026 Nurse Salary and Work-Life Report reveals a harsh reality that over 50% of nurses report burnout, and nearly 43% are actively looking to leave the bedside. 1 In high-acuity environments, exhaustion is not solely physical. It’s emotional, moral, and grows as we begin to feel powerless in our work. Too often, organizations treat the systemic erosion with band-aids like pizza parties or corporate wellness emails. These gestures feel hollow because they treat burnout like a personal failure rather than tackling the broken system. Therefore, the critical question remains: What tools do nurse leaders have to target and stop burnout upstream?
That tool is coaching.
When it comes to proving that coaching works, we don’t have to guess. While the randomized controlled trials cited below were conducted among physicians, the human reality of burnout applies just as powerfully to nursing. Rigorous trials published in JAMA and other leading journals demonstrate that both professional and peer coaching are effective strategies for reducing burnout and boosting well-being, in addition to greater increases in quality of life and resilience 2,3 In addition, structured coaching models can yield up to a 30% reduction in burnout by targeting emotional exhaustion and lack of agency. 4
Of course, applying this coaching data to clinical practice is not about adding another checkbox to a leader’s overflowing plate. We need a fundamental shift in how we communicate and support one another. Coaching practices create a psychological safety net that move us away from survival mode and back to meaningful care. The following are coaching approaches and powerful questions that clinical leaders can embed into daily workflow and overtime to mitigate burnout.
Daily Workflow: Micro-Coaching for the Shift
- The Morning Huddle: Replace top-down panic with collaborative safety. Instead of diving straight into metrics, nurse leaders can ask:
- What is one clinical hurdle you anticipate today and how can we get ahead of it together?
- What strength do you want to lean into today
- Bedside Pause: When two nurses face a failed line placement, use peer-to-peer reflection that breaks the cycle of stress and builds shared resilience.
- What did we learn from that difficult procedure that we can apply to the next?
- How can we protect each other’s confidence moving forward?
- The End of Shift Exit: Instead of letting a nurse take a grueling 12-hour shift home, pause for two minutes before they leave.
- What is the hardest thing you’re carrying from this shift that we need to leave right here?
- What went well today that you’re proud of?
Upstream and Long-Term: Sustainable Coaching
- Swap Annual Reviews for Quarterly Growth: Replace annual evaluations with ongoing coaching conversations that cultivate and sustain professional identity.
- Looking at your role over the last three months, where did you feel the greatest sense of purpose?
- What experiences have been the most frustrating that require system level change?
- Prioritize Peer Coaching: Burnout thrives in isolation, therefore pairing nurses for monthly reflection can be a game changer.
- What went well this week, and what boundary will protect your energy next week?
- What’s one skill you want to strengthen and how can I support you?
- Leaders Need Coaching Too: When leaders openly participate in peer coaching or executive coaching, this communicates to their team that growth and reflection are essential for everyone, not just the frontline staff.
- Am I asking my team to do the reflective work that I am unwilling to do myself?
- What hard lesson can I share to demonstrate how coaching can make adifference in our personal and professional lives?
Burn Bright, Not Out
Embracing this kind of reflective leadership changes everything. If I had experienced this kind of consistent and supportive coaching years ago in the nursery, my story could have turned out differently. I might have caught myself dipping long before I burned out and needed to take a pause from clinical practice. As clinicians, we make it our highest priority to protect our patients. We owe that exact same standard of care to ourselves, our peers, and our teams. When we replace reactive band-aids with intentional, everyday coaching, we stop merely managing survival. We build a culture where clinicians don’t just endure the bedside, they burn bright, not out.
Across all clinical environments, we don’t just cross our fingers and hope for healing. We create the conditions that support it. The same should be true for professional development. When leaders intentionally embed, expand, and elevate coaching, they create a culture where learning, growth, and community can thrive.
Citations:
1. Walker A, Wiley J. Nurse.org 2026 state of nursing survey: stress, pay, safety & beyond. Nurse.org. Published April 6, 2026. Accessed August 3, 2026. https://nurse.org/articles/state-of-nursing-survey-2026/
2. Dyrbye LN, Shanafelt TD, Gill PR, Satele DV, West CP. Effect of a Professional Coaching Intervention on the Well-being and Distress of Physicians: A Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Intern Med. 2019;179(10):1406-1414. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.2425
3. Kiser SB, Sterns JD, Lai PY, Horick NK, Palamara K. Physician Coaching by Professionally Open. 2024;7(4):e245645. Published 2024 Apr 1. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.5645 Open. 2024;7(4):e245645. Published 2024 Apr 1. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.5645
4. Khalili, J., Miotto, K., Wang, T. et al. Professional Coaching to Reduce Physician Burnout: A Randomized Clinical Trial. J GEN INTERN MED (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606- 025-09653-w
About the Author:
Dr. Taryn Hill, MD, MEd, FAAP, is a double board-certified pediatrician in General Pediatrics and Pediatric Hospital Medicine, specializing in the care of hospitalized children. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master of Education from Arizona State University while completing Teach for America Corps, and her medical degree from the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, followed by completion of residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Hill founded and co-directed a nationally recognized pediatric residency coaching program and has presented nationally and internationally on academic coaching in graduate medical education.
Website Link: Resident Coaching Program at John Hopkins All Children’s
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