Professional coaching, long utilized in the business world, is a results-oriented, stigma-free approach to addressing many of the interpersonal, emotional, and interprofessional challenges of modern healthcare. The goal of clinician coaching is:

• to enhance self-awareness of clinician strengths and self-compassion for their challenges
• to invite clinicians to question self-defeating thoughts, beliefs, and habitual responses to their environment and examine new perspectives
• to provide clinicians with individually tailored, self-relevant, solution-focused feedback.

Dr Ashton-James specialises in clinician communication and wellbeing coaching. She draws on decades of research into emotions, self-regulation, interpersonal communication and trust to provide clinicians with evidence-based strategies for:

• managing patient expectations
• establishing patient trust
• managing patient distress (fear, anxiety, anger, frustration, shame)
• managing clinician distress
• engaging patients with (often non-preferred) treatment advice

Dr Ashton-James offers clinician coaching to individuals and groups by arrangement, in person or online (web-based video conferencing). Her customised internet-delivered live seminars (webinars) are a popular way for groups with a common goal (e.g., improving patient engagement with opioid tapering advice or dealing with emotionally challenging patient encounters) to benefit from her specialised knowledge and experience.