Welcome NMA! Thank you for being in the room.
I asked the research literature one focused question: for each senior role a physician might move into, does coaching help you get there?
What the evidence actually supports about coaching and advancement, including where it doesn’t.
Sara V. Simmons, MHA, PCC · Executive & Leadership Coach
Read it and decide for yourself.
Physician Coaching & Senior Leadership Roles: An Evidence Map, two pages, fourteen sources.
No email required. Take it, use it, argue with it.
What’s in it:
Every senior physician leadership role, sorted into three tiers by how directly coaching helps you reach it
Fourteen sources, nine peer-reviewed, including three randomized trials and two systematic reviews
Program reported figures marked as such, so you can weigh them yourself
The evidence on mid-career faculty from underrepresented backgrounds, called out separately
What the research does not show, stated first
If you want to go further:
Two things I do, depending on what you need.
For you. Confidential one-to-one coaching for senior physicians carrying more than anyone can see. Strategic clarity, executive presence, and a thinking partner with no stake in your answer.
For your people. Group or team coaching for a cohort of rising leaders in your department or system. The evidence for group coaching is the strongest in the literature, and the cost per physician is the lowest, which makes it the more defensible line item when you take it to a budget conversation.
Why I built it:
Every coach will tell you coaching is transformative. Very few will tell you what it has actually been measured to do.
I spent 28 years in the Army and more than two decades in human capital strategy, and I have never found overclaiming to be a durable way to earn a senior leader's trust. So this document leads with its own limitations. If the evidence for something is thin, it says so.