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Measuring your current career satisfaction
An expert explains a tool developed to help ophthalmologists rate and rank satisfaction within their profession and practice.
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“When you’re in the muck you can only see muck. If you somehow manage to float above it, you will still see the muck, but from a different perspective. And you see other things, too. That’s the consolation of philosophy.” – David Cronenberg
Much of modern ophthalmic practice is as sweet as it was 50 years ago. Helping patients in need. Providing meaningful employment and coaching for support staff. That delicious nexus of intellectual and manual mastery.
And then there is the rest of it. The “muck of practice life,” as a dear mentor of mine put it.
Unfortunately, the sweet-to-muck ratio is diminishing for many surgeons. Paradoxically, those in larger group practices, where external pressures can conflate with internal partner-to-partner frictions, seem to have the fastest-falling ratios today as I travel around the country on assignment.
Several years ago, I developed a tool to sort through the many variables that go into a provider’s satisfaction with their current professional situation. I would like to share this with you for several reasons, mostly related to these changing and still uncertain times.
How it works
First, you and your colleagues around the boardroom can use the results of this tool to learn more about each other, which is the start of a more intimate and effective team of owners. When I am working with a dispirited or “broken” board, one of the root causes is a lack of sufficient understanding of, and empathy for, each partner’s priorities. This is pretty fundamental stuff. What are you looking for as part of a group practice setting? What is important to you? Are you getting it here?
Second, this tool may help you put your finger on what is bugging you most about your present practice situation and put this in context. If there is something you rank highly as a desired aspect of practice, and the score is particularly low, this item will fall into sharp relief and force you to think about what you can do to make improvements in that area.
Finally, I hope that even if you do not use this as a board exercise, or if your “board” is you alone, you will take this tool for a test drive and gain some personal insights about how balanced and positive things really are, despite the mucky bits.
Read each of the following 13 items. After each, enter an A, B or C score for how important this item is to you, and then a number between 1 (low/terrible) and 10 (high/wonderful) to rate how satisfied you are about that dimension of your practice life.
For example, for item three below, which asks you to rank and rate “Community,” you might write down an “A,” because where you live is very important to you, and a “9,” because you really enjoy where you live.
Pinto’s physician professional satisfaction rank and rate
Rank (A/B/C) _______
Rate (1-10) _______
2. The partnership buy-in cost and terms: If you have still not bought in, or have done so recently, is the pricing fair and in line with similar opportunities around the country?
Rank (A/B/C) _______
Rate (1-10) _______
3. The community in which one lives: Do you and your family have access to desired amenities, scenery, culture, recreation, career opportunities for your spouse, child education options, etc?
Rank (A/B/C) _______
Rate (1-10) _______
4. Peer-to-peer relationships: Is your practice characterized by professional harmony and the absence of conflict, or do one or more doctors in the practice make it unpleasant to come to work?
Rank (A/B/C) _______
Rate (1-10) _______
5. Support staff: Are lay staff competent? Do they receive sufficient oversight and development by management? Do day-to-day working relationships contribute or detract from your job satisfaction?
Rank (A/B/C) _______
Rate (1-10) _______
6. Access to needed resources: Do you have a reasonable measure of the staff, facilities, technology, practice-building promotion and other resources needed to thrive?
Rank (A/B/C) _______
Rate (1-10) _______
7. Control over your access to patients: Are new patients fairly apportioned between doctors? Do senior doctors do their part in passing along patients, or do junior providers have to hustle and compete to build their own practice segments?
Rank (A/B/C) _______
Rate (1-10) _______
8. Independence: Do you have the ability to practice your profession without unnecessary oversight or control from above while, of course, yielding to appropriate group standards?
Rank (A/B/C) _______
Rate (1-10) _______
9. A fair voice in policy and governance: Are you allowed to participate in an appropriate degree of business and medical policy decisions? Are you kept “in the loop?”
Rank (A/B/C) _______
Rate (1-10) _______
10. Compensation: Is the provider compensation methodology, and your personal income level, equitable, proportionate to effort and in line with market rates?
Rank (A/B/C) _______
Rate (1-10) _______
11. Bonding and attachment to a cause greater than oneself: In healthy group practice settings, the collaborative delivery of superior eye care can provide a significant source of career and life satisfaction, as well as feelings of pride, security, solidarity, being part of a team, etc.
Rank (A/B/C) _______
Rate (1-10) _______
12. Durability/sustainability: A sense that all of the above favorable variables will remain the same or improve in the years ahead.
Rank (A/B/C) _______
Rate (1-10) _______
13. Exit strategy: A sense of fair pricing and terms for doctors, including you, as they leave the practice.
Rank (A/B/C) _______
Rate (1-10) _______
Final considerations
After completing your rank and rate for these 13 general items, feel free to add any other dimensions not covered in this list that make your professional life satisfying and meaningful. For you, career satisfaction may be the ability to take a mid-day exercise break, or teach at the local university, or have hours flexible enough to take care of young children.
Finally, ask yourself these questions:
- Based on insights gained from completing this exercise, what is my overall level of satisfaction with my current professional setting?
- Are the items that are most important to me scoring highly?
- Is there one hot button item that I need to address acutely, or do I have mediocre feelings across several different categories?
- Could it be possible to make improvements in these scores?
- Can I make these improvements on my own, or do I need help from peers, managers or outside facilitators?
- Are improvements feasible in this practice, or only possible if I leave?