Dear Mr. XXXX
I am a Family Medicine M.D. who has practiced medicine in a small Northern California university town in Northern since fall,1988. I was originally in a 5-7 doctor practice, but have now been in Solo Private practice for about 13 years. I am writing to let you know that participating these past 3 months in the Winning Focus stress coaching opportunity put forth through Norcal Malpractice Ins company, has been EXTREMELY REWARDING and helpful to me as a doctor.
In March and the first few months after that in 2020, I was very worried about the survival of my practice, due to the COVID Pandemic. I got through that time and have maintained a viable practice. However, the stressors over the past 1 1/2 years have definitely challenged my ability to stay calm, focused, and communicating optimally, with my staff, my patients, and my family members.
Prior to participating in the Zoom based Stress Coaching program, I was really struggling with being compassionate and optimally responsive to my more challenging patients, and even with some who traditionally were “easy to get along with.”
I happen to see quite a lot of local professors, teachers, school principals, lawyers and business owners, among my patient population; their proactive natures overall, have helped me to maintain good long term relationships. However, the COVID pandemic has challenged several of my patients’ prior stable emotional well being,(especially the educators!) and that has made several patient encounters much more challenging for me.
In addition, I do have a number of clients regionally who are financially more challenged right now, and this also adds to their stress, and can disrupt the usual ease and flow of our communications.
I have always believed that the best insurance against possibly being sued by a patient is to maintain a good interpersonal and therapeutic relationship with each of my clients.
I really want to thank and commend Norcal for making this Stress Coaching program with Winning Focus available at this time…I bellieve that it really saved me from having some potentially litigation triggering communications with some of my clients over the past few months.
Sincerely,
Dr. M. L. G. MD