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A Note to Clinicians

Clinician supporting patient.

Looking at our healthcare landscape, it can be easy for clinicians to become cynical and jaded. Access to care is a struggle for many. As chronic conditions skyrocket, stress management and healthy lifestyles decline and people are unhealthier than they’ve ever been. Medical professionals are working more hours than ever, yet basic lifestyle-related health conditions are exhibiting in younger populations with greater frequency. Physicians, advance practice providers, nurses, and patients alike are frustrated with a dysfunctional system. So why even bother to practice?

You bother because you care. And, while no one can change the healthcare system overnight, it is possible to have a positive impact on patients—one patient at a time— by taking just a moment to breathe, pay attention, and consider how the patient can best be served. 

Often it can be helpful to interject a new perspective into a dysfunctional system to support the patient when they are not in the clinic—when they are living their everyday lives. By inviting fresh eyes and ears into their lives to support them, the patient can begin to take responsibility for their own health. Healing Ground Health Coaching fills that need. 

Below are several situations or conditions for which health coaching can be especially helpful. Suggesting health coaching to a patient may make a big difference in their lives, as they may not be aware that this option is available—or how valuable it can be. Please feel free to contact me with questions about my services or to learn how health coaching may be helpful with other conditions. 

Mary Dobish, Health Coach
Stress Management

Stress Management

We cannot always control the stressors in our lives but we can build a solid foundation that allows us to thrive, regardless of external conditions. Healing Ground Health Coaching provides a pathway toward building that foundation.
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Chronic Condition Management

There is no question that management of chronic health conditions is the health challenge of our time. Half of all adults are dealing with at least one chronic medical condition.
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Surgical Readiness and Recovery Image

Orthopedic Surgery Readiness & Recovery

Research associates pre-operative patient activation with better patient orthopedic postoperative outcomes. (Andrawis et al., 2015). My own recent experience with bilateral knee replacement surgery has convinced me that this is true.
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Stress Management

Stress Management

We cannot always control the stressors in our lives but we can build a solid foundation that allows us to thrive, regardless of external conditions. Healing Ground Health Coaching provides a pathway toward building that foundation.
LEARN MORE

Chronic Condition Management

There is no question that management or chronic health conditions is the health challenge of our time. Half of all adults are dealing with at least one chronic medical condition.
LEARN MORE

Surgical Readiness and Recovery Image

Orthopedic Surgery Readiness & Recovery

Research associates pre-operative patient activation with better patient orthopedic postoperative outcomes. (Andrawis et al., 2015). My own recent experience with bi-lateral knee replacement surgery has convinced me that this is true.
LEARN MORE

Health coaching and stress management

Stress Management

Research has shown that the stress response plays a negative role in most chronic health conditions including type 2 diabetes mellitus, heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, depression, anxiety, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia. The list is long. (Surwit, Schneider, & Feinglos, 1992) (American Heart Association, 2018) (“Stress, Anxiety and Arthritis,” 2016) (“Causes-Fibromyalgia,” 2017)

In reaction to this trend, clinicians often tell their patients to do things to lower their stress levels: diminish anger when driving, go to bed earlier, take a walk, relax, and do whatever is needed to reduce stress. The patient might even receive a stress reduction brochure or class list. Six months or a year later, the patient returns and their numbers are no better. The clinician again tells their patient to do things to lower their stress levels and the process repeats itself. The physician is frustrated by what they see as patient “non-compliance” (increasing the physician’s stress) and the patient is frustrated having not followed the orders, leaving them feeling guilty, ashamed, and thus experiencing even more negative effects of stress and exacerbating their condition.

 

We cannot always control the stressors in our lives but we can build a solid foundation that allows us to thrive, regardless of the external conditions.

An effective means of breaking this cycle is for the clinician to remember that stress reduction involves deliberate, managed lifestyle change—which is difficult for anyone. Managing change is so difficult, in fact, that large businesses and corporations marshal whole “change management” teams to oversee change and despite that effort, are often unsuccessful. Yet individuals are often left to fend for themselves when it comes to lifestyle changes. Clinicians do not have the time to assist or support the patient in managing these lifestyle changes. This is where Healing Ground health coaching can help. 

Assisting and supporting clients as they manage lifestyle changes to achieve a more satisfying state of well being is what I do. While the tasks I perform as a coach are many, basically I assist the client in recognizing and defining their stress reactions, educate them about ways to work with these reactions, and partnering with them to provide accountability that encourages sustained behavior change. 

Health coaching and chronic conditions

Chronic Condition Management

There is no question that managing ongoing or chronic health conditions is the health challenge of our time. Half of all adults are dealing with at least one chronic medical condition. Of those, approximately 23% are dealing with multiple conditions (Boehmer et al., 2016). The numbers are increasing both as the population ages and as more younger people develop conditions. This is a staggering number of people.

Managing these conditions can be overwhelming and frustrating for both the patient and the clinician, resulting in a downward spiral that helps neither. Our medical system, as it stands now, is simply not equipped to manage these numbers. Patients are overwhelmed by their experience and feel isolated and ashamed. Clinicians have limited time to connect with patients to understand their struggles and they also can feel overwhelmed by the immensity of the problem, increasing their stress. When patients are unsuccessful with implementing their treatment plan, clinicians see them as  “non-compliant”.  The patient can become overwhelmed, embarrassed, and scared. In this highly charged medical environment, neither the caregiver nor the patient benefits. This dynamic is a recipe for failure.

Healing Ground Health Coaching can interject fresh insight into this downward spiral by shifting the patient’s attention from an over-stressed medical system and into their own story. Because I am not trained as a conventional medical practitioner, I am able to partner with the client to provide a fresh perspective.. This allows them to move from a defensive posture into a more centered and present state. The client is then better able to marshal their internal resources necessary to move out of helplessness and into action. As they take steps toward sustainable lifestyle changes, they begin to take responsibility for their well-being.

Health coaching and orthopedic surgical readiness and recovery

Surgical Readiness and Recovery Image

Research has shown that pre-operative patient activation is associated with better patient orthopedic postoperative outcomes (Andrawis et al., 2015). My own experience undergoing bilateral knee replacement surgery has convinced me that this is true. Since my successful surgery and recovery in 2018, I’ve been able to put my experience to work, helping others evaluate their own suitability for joint replacement and other orthopedic surgery, prepare for surgery, and enter into a productive recovery.

Patients considering joint replacement surgery face unique quandaries. The surgery they are considering is completely elective, is highly invasive, and carries risk. How do they decided whether and when to have the surgery? What degree of risk is worth taking for pain relief? What happens if the surgery doesn’t help? Will their lifestyle support surgery success? 

For patients wrestling with these questions, I encourage a self-evaluative, “cost benefit” point of view. I believe that pain is a pernicious player and until we step back and actually evaluate the cost of pain on our lives, we cannot make a well-reasoned decision.

In addition, I work with clients to evaluate their own suitability for surgery based on their lifestyle choices and will support their client’s efforts at changing those behaviors that no longer serve them well. For example it may be helpful for the patient to begin an exercise program along with dietary modifications or begin a smoking cessation program prior to their surgery. I assist the client in marshaling the internal resources to begin making these changes pre-surgery and then support them as they reintroduce and maintain these changes at the appropriate time after surgery. 

Finally, fear is a natural part of the patient experience prior to any surgery. As a coach, I can help prepare your patients by helping them discover their self awareness and encouraging them to face and address their fears prior to surgery. 

Recovery from orthopedic surgery can be extremely difficult. Pain, immobility, and foggy brain all contribute to a sense of patient helplessness, working against patient activation. With support from a health coach patients can take responsibility for their recovery and understand their role in the recovery so that, together with their physician, they can celebrate positive outcomes.

More About My Work

 Patient referrals. I gratefully accept your patient referrals. I offer a free initial 30-minute consultation in person, by phone, or online.

Group coaching is a good way for patients to learn from each other. Groups may be for specific patient populations, open to the public, or closed groups within your organization. Open groups are posted under events.

Workshops and presentations. I’m available to present on subjects related to health, well-being, self-care, integrative coaching, Ayurvedic health practices, and other topics.