Table Of ContentKersley4 9/29/05 11:53 AM Page i
Prescription for Change
for Doctors Who
Want a Life
Second edition
Susan E Kersley MB BCh, MEd, BA
Foreword by
Ruth Chambers
Radcliffe Publishing
Oxford • Seattle
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
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Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742
© 2006 by Susan E Kersley
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Version Date: 20160525
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Kersley4 9/29/05 11:53 AM Page iii
Contents
Foreword to the first edition v
Foreword vi
Preface vii
About the author viii
Acknowledgements ix
Extracts from reviews of the first edition x
Introduction xiii
Part One: You can change your life
1 Life coaching and doctors 3
2 Are you ready? 8
3 Do you have a life? 13
4 Are you a square peg in a round hole? 19
5 How to change your life in seven easy steps 23
6 How will you respond to your wake up call 36
Part Two: Prescription for change
7 What would you do if you had the time? 43
8 No more procrastination 51
9 Looking after number one 55
10 What’s draining you? 61
11 Living an abundant life 66
12 Relationship: what relationship? 70
13 Top ten tips for achieving your goals 74
Part Three: Medicine is more than a job: it’s a lifestyle
14 Who heals the healers? 79
15 Wellbeing: reality or dream? 83
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iv Contents
16 Do your colleagues understand? 89
17 How to see fewer patients in your clinic 97
18 The end of the road or a new beginning? 101
Part Four: Case studies
19 The overwhelmed GP 107
20 The disillusioned consultant 111
21 The doctor’s other half 115
22 The independent soul, the sole doctor 118
23 The overstressed doctor 120
24 The mentor 123
25 The mentee 126
26 The enlightened doctor 128
27 The unsettled doctor 130
28 The doctor who has to re-take professional exams 132
29 ANew Year story 134
Part Five: Life coaching for change
30 Let your heart sing 141
31 What on earth is life coaching? 145
And finally … 149
Appendix 1: Frequently asked questions 151
Appendix 2: The International Coach Federation 154
Kersley4 9/29/05 11:53 AM Page v
Foreword to first
edition
It is hard to change. Often we get caught in a rut, existing rather than living
in the mad ‘hamster wheel’ situation that many of us find ourselves in.
But is it enough to wait until you are at breaking point before you decide
to do something about your crazy lifestyle?
I have been witness to many doctors at that breaking point. Some of them
even cried uncontrollably when they suddenly realised that they were not in
control of their lives. I didn’t just want to pass them a tissue. I wanted to do
something about it.
So, I commissioned Susan Kersley, to write a series of articles for Career
Focus in BMJ Careers to help our readers realise that they could be in con-
trol of their lives and spiralling workload.
I received extreme reactions to some of her articles: some hated them,
others loved them. Some saw them as glorified common sense and others as
a prescription for change. As an editor, it is always satisfying to know that
something you have published has caused a reaction. It means that your
readers’ apathy has turned into action. So I wasn’t bothered about the neg-
ative feedback. I knew her articles were being read across the world. Every
time I published one of Susan’s articles, the number of web hits we had
would soar.
Maybe it is uncomfortable to read something that makes you realise how
miserable your life is. Maybe it is too unbearable to try and change. Susan
certainly hits your vulnerable spot but also leads you through what practi-
cal things you can do to make a difference in your life.
So, take a deep breath, take courage and read on. You will not regret it.
Dr Rhona MacDonald
Former Editor
Career Focus
BMJ Careers
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Foreword
It is difficult to be a consistently caring and compassionate doctor if you are
not happy with your own lot. That’s all day every day, throughout your
career. Actually it’s a difficult challenge even when you are happy with your
lot – working in such a high-pressured environment as the NHS with a reg-
ular quota of emotionally draining work. You can lose perspective and get
drawn into a way of life that is dominated by work. You’re either at work or
recovering from being at work, and so missing out on the out-of-work activ-
ities and fun that used to counterbalance work and worries.
Use this book as your personal guide to how to make changes to your
working and home lives so that you can thrive – at work and in your well-
being in general. When you have worked out what to do – perhaps with a
mentor or life coach or your partner, as Susan Kersley recommends – you
can plan goals that you’ll actually achieve, you can have a life and be a doc-
tor too. The working side of your life will be all the better for that.
Susan says ‘This book is the catalyst for the life you want.’ It is, so long as
you read through it, reflect on what it means for you, and put your resolu-
tions into practice in both the short and long term. That takes some doing,
and Susan will give you the insights and framework you need to visualise
your future and make it happen as you want it to. You can rediscover your
old hobbies, work out a better balance of work and leisure, renew and
strengthen your relationships with your partner and family, friends and col-
leagues. Sounds like a dream? Well make it come true by reading and work-
ing through this book.
Ruth Chambers
General Practitioner
Clinical Dean at Staffordshire University
Professor of Primary Care Development
at Stoke-on-Trent Teaching PCT
GP Adviser on GP Recruitment and Retention
to Shropshire and Staffordshire Strategic Health Authority
August 2005
Kersley4 9/29/05 11:53 AM Page vii
Preface
Since the first edition was published in 2003, there seems to be more recog-
nition of doctors’ needs to deal with the stress and overwhelm of their pro-
fessional lives today and also their entitlement to a life outside medicine.
This book gives gentle guidance and asks challenging questions to enable
more doctors to have a life.
Those who experience the benefit of support from a mentor or a coach
know how empowering this can be. However, there are still too many doc-
tors reluctant to admit that they might gain benefit from engaging with this
process. It is my sincere wish that this book will introduce those doctors to
some of the tools offered by life coaching, so that they can use these to trans-
form their lives.
You may find that the contents of this book is largely just ‘common sense’.
Perhaps it is, but common sense may be the forgotten ingredient in the lives
of many busy professionals who don’t stop to ‘have a life’.
This edition has been revised where necessary and has some extra ‘case
studies’. I hope you find it a catalyst to transform your life.
Susan E Kersley
August 2005
Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common
sense.
Gertrude Stein
Common sense is not so common.
Voltaire
Kersley4 9/29/05 11:53 AM Page viii
About the author
Susan Kersley has been a life coach since 1999.
Previously a medical practitioner and counsellor working in inner city
Birmingham, she took early retirement in 1997 to live more creatively. A
graduate of CoachU, she works with stressed and overworked doctors and
others, on the telephone, wherever they live, to enable them to have a more
fulfilled life both within and outside medicine. Her acclaimed articles about
lifestyle and personal development, published regularly in the British
Medical Journal, evolved to become ‘Prescription for Change’ to bring the
message she is passionate about, ‘You can be a doctor and have a life’, to a
wider audience.
To receive her ezine (email newsletter), find out more about her coaching,
courses and other publications, please visit www.thedoctorscoach.co.uk.
Aims for ‘Prescription for Change’
• To promote more self awareness by encouraging personal
development.
• To educate doctors about the benefits of life coaching.
• To promote the more widespread use of life coaching amongst doctors
at all stages of their career, both for themselves and their patients.
Kersley4 9/29/05 11:53 AM Page ix
Acknowledgements
Avery special thank you to Rhona MacDonald, former editor of BMJ Careers,
who encouraged, motivated and coached me to produce my first published
article, ‘Striking the balance’, in the BMJ in December 2001. Rhona recog-
nised my potential as a writer and encouraged me to expand the original
article into a series published in the BMJduring 2002.
This book stemmed from my desire to extend the message of the articles
to a wider medical readership. Some of the chapters in this book are similar
to the articles originally published in the BMJ and are included here with
permission.
Supporting me during the gestation of the book have been my own coach-
es and also my husband Jonathan who, in spite of remaining somewhat
bemused at my new identity, has given me steady support.
Ahuge thanks too, to all the doctors who contacted me after reading my
articles in the BMJ. Most I have never met face to face. However, over sev-
eral months of coaching conversations, I am delighted to have enabled them
to transform their lives. I thank them for their trust in me and for sharing
their life stories, which have informed the writing for this book.
To protect the confidentiality of the coaching sessions, the situations
described do not refer to any particular individual but are a combination of
several experiences.
