Bio

Margaret Cary is a doctor’s doctor with a physician’s mind and a friend’s heart.

As an executive coach Dr. Cary blends a scientist’s thinking with empathy. She is a ferocious learner and serial focuser with a lifelong passion for sharing what she’s learned. She is an inspirational motivator, occasional humorist, and excellent listener and storyteller.

She is internationally known as an engaging speaker who translates the latest research in leadership development to entertaining and highly interactive presentations. She is an executive coach, author, professional speaker, facilitator, and teacher.

In fourth grade Maggi decided to become a family physician in a small town. Not only did she do that, she went on to get involved in nearly every aspect of health care:

  • Physician in private practice and co-director of an emergency department
  • Turnaround consultant – in 90 days took a clinic from three years of losing money to turning a profit
  • SVP and employee number six at Acueity, a medical device startup
  • Medical director of Vox Medica, $200M/year medical communications company
  • Co-author of a seminal text in health care information technology, Telemedicine and Telehealth: Principles, Policies, Performance and Pitfalls
  • Senior executive at the US Department of Health and Human Services in President Clinton’s administration
  • Intrapreneur at the Veterans Health Administration, creating and directing programs in physician leadership development, medical technology assessment, and Medicare Advantage Entrepreneur at Cary Communications International

Dr. Cary holds faculty positions at Georgetown University School of Medicine and is a member of the Executive Advisory Board for the Center for Health Administration at the University of Colorado Denver Business School.

Her work encompasses leadership coaching, training, and consultation for healthcare professionals in executive roles as well as speaking nationally and internationally on topics of leadership development, emotional intelligence, and evidenced-based management skills.

More About Dr. Cary

Dr. Cary is a senior executive, physician, educator, professional speaker, author, facilitator and executive coach who combines broad management and patient care experience in health care, information technology and the media. She has held executive positions in patient care organizations, a medical device start-up, a healthcare communications company, and the Federal government, and has served on the Colorado State Board of Medical Examiners.

She combines her understanding of the critical importance of effective communication, leadership and management skills in employee productivity and workplace well-being with practical knowledge of how organizations work. She is a graduate of Georgetown University’s Leadership Coaching Certificate Program and an International Coach Federation-credentialed executive coach.

Dr. Cary holds faculty positions at Georgetown University School of Medicine, George Washington University School of Medicine and University of Colorado Denver Business School, where she is on the Executive Advisory Board for the Center for Health Administration. She co-authored Telemedicine and Telehealth: Principles, Policies, Performance and Pitfalls, a seminal text in telehealth and telemedicine. Her essays appear on http://www.thedoctorweighsin.com/.

Dr. Cary’s clients value her honesty, insight, understanding of the challenges in being a physician and ability to help them understand their strengths and how to use them in increasing their management and leadership effectiveness. She works with her clients to develop concrete goals and steps needed to achieve them.

She is a popular speaker on “Why Physician Leadership?” “Leveraging Questions for the Leader’s Edge,” “Creating a Culture of Quality and Safety” and “The Science of Persuasion and the Art of Storytelling: How to Connect with Your Audience.”

She designs client-tailored, highly interactive, custom physician leadership development workshops. Typical comments include “Engaging,” “Gets everyone involved,” “I enjoyed the messages, your ease and affect,” “Great warmth and poise,” “. . . competent, confident and having fun.”

Education

  • MD, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
  • Certificate, Leadership Coaching Program, Georgetown University
  • Certificate, Kennedy School of Government
  • MBA, University of Colorado, Denver
  • MPH, University of California, Los Angeles
  • BA, University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Certified in Hogan assessments and DiSC
  • Certified in MSCEIT (Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test)

Contact

  • phone (202) 403-1966
  • email drcary (at) thecarygroupglobal (dot) com

Blog

In Medicine, The “Soft” Skills Are Essential

In Medicine, The “Soft” Skills Are Essential

Michael’s Story: The Beginning “I’m straightforward, to the point,” said Michael, the CEO at a large inner-city hospital. “The people I work with—they may not like me, but they know I’m right.” “What else?” I said to Michael, whom I had just been retained to coach.  “I just wish they understood me. I do what’s […]

CATEGORIES: Coaching Emotional Intelligence Physician Leadership

12 Steps to Emotionally Intelligent Healthcare

12 Steps to Emotionally Intelligent Healthcare

Fine-tuning high-emotion healthcare services can make a big difference in patients’ satisfaction and outcomes. Patients’ emotions influence their quality and value ratings as well as what they tell their friends. High-emotion healthcare includes services related to major life events, some of which are at the top of the Holmes and Rahe scale of stressful life events that can contribute to […]

CATEGORIES: Emotional Intelligence Physician Leadership Quality of Care The Doctor Weighs In

Answering a Cry for Help with a Touch of Humanity

Answering a Cry for Help with a Touch of Humanity

Dr. Margaret Cary helps a distressed stranger and recalls one of the main reasons she went into medicine. “My papers…my paaaapers.” I was at a Falls Church superstore checkout counter when I heard her cry. My first reaction to nonthreatening inappropriate sounds is to ignore them and leave the area as soon as possible. “My […]

CATEGORIES: Leadership Patient Safety

Are Physicians Coachable? (YES!)

Are Physicians Coachable? (YES!)

What is it about physicians? The stereotype of the brilliant and bold surgeon who reigns over the operating room whose mantra is “A chance to cut is a chance to cure.” The ever-smiling pediatrician wearing a bowtie with small elephant on his stethoscope. And the pipe-smoking psychiatrist, steeped in Freud and saying little. None of […]

CATEGORIES: Coaching Physician Leadership