Category: Patient Safety

How One Student Struggles to Become a Good Doctor

Coaching and role playing: compassionate communication with patients. Margaret Cary, a longtime physician who teaches a class each year at Georgetown University’s medical school, is the founder of the Cary Group Global, a company that helps doctors adapt when they move from patient care to executive jobs. Jack Penner, 25, is hardly ...

More

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. �...

More

Learning Non-Technical Skills Saves Patients’ Lives

I turned the corner and there it was. The Death Star, as locals call it, because it’s star-shaped, imposing, and has a helipad on the roof. Also known as the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow—a state-of-the-art, 14-floor hospital completely interlinked, part of the National Health Service in Scotland—it was the ...

More

About Dr. Cary

Dr. Margaret Cary bio photo

Dr. Margaret 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.

read more

Contact

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

Coaching in The Republic of Medicine

Coaching in The Republic of Medicine

How much of a coach’s frustrated “What is it about physicians?” is generated by preconceived assumptions rather than by remaining curious? I am a physician and, as with most people, our views of ourselves and our beliefs in what we project to others may vary wildly with what people see. We’re a culture. Before you […]

CATEGORIES: Coaching Physician Leadership

Develop a Coaching Culture

Develop a Coaching Culture

What might you do to develop a coaching culture in your office, in your organization? “I know I blow up and get angry. I am protective about my patients and the physicians in my department and I can’t help myself.” Dr. Leonard was one of my coaching clients, a surgeon who had left a trail […]

CATEGORIES: Coaching Physician Leadership