CENTRE FOR COACHING
Coaching Skills for Medical Professionals
Clinical leadership through a coaching lens
Coaching Skills for Medical Professionals (CSMP) is a six module, advanced professional development course designed for doctors working in high stakes environments where clinical accountability, medico legal responsibility, and formal leadership authority are central to daily practice.
The CSMP addresses the distinct developmental demands of medical professionals: making irreversible decisions under uncertainty; carrying responsibility for patient outcomes; supervising and assessing trainees; responding to medical/surgical complications and complaints, and navigating complex, risk laden healthcare systems.
Rather than focusing on generic communication or wellbeing skills, the CSMP develops coaching as a leadership capability for doctors. Participants learn how to use coaching informed practices to:
- exercise authority with humanity,
- repair trust after clinical or relational breakdown,
- lead courageous conversations involving risk, error, or under performance,
- sustain ethical, values based clinical leadership over the long term.
Learning is grounded in doctor specific cases (e.g. interpersonal dynamics, under pressure, adverse events, complaints processes) and is delivered through facilitated group coaching, simulations, and structured reflective practice. The programme creates a protected space for doctors to examine how they think, decide, and lead when the stakes are highest.
Key Benefits
By the end of the CSMP, participants will be able to:
- Apply coaching principles as a leadership discipline to support responsibility, learning, and ethical decision making in clinical contexts.
- Lead courageous conversations involving risk, error, accountability, and under performance while preserving trust and professional integrity.
- Recognise, assess, and repair breakdowns of trust arising from medical error, complaints, or hierarchical tension.
- Demonstrate heightened self-authority and emotional regulation under pressure, aligned with professional values and clinical responsibility.
- Supervise, develop, and support trainees and multi-disciplinary colleagues using coaching informed approaches that balance compassion with standards.
- Design a sustainable personal renewal strategy to mitigate burnout, moral injury, and leadership fatigue.
FAQ
You can contact the Centre for Coaching at info@centreforcoaching.co.za or you can reach out directly to Prof Cathryn Edwards at cathryn@cathrynedwards.com
Medical professionals working in the healthcare sector e.g. Senior doctors in postgraduate training, early and mid-career consultants, medical doctors with formal supervisory, clinical governance or leadership responsibilities.
The course is delivered online (Zoom) over a period of six weeks from 16:00 SAST or 15:00 GMT (approx. 2.5 - 3 hours)