Simply Worth It: Physician Negotiations with Dr. Linda Street

When a physician quits their job, it’s usually not as simple as handing in your resignation letter and riding off into the sunset. Most of us are contractually obligated to stay for up to 180 days. That’s a REALLY long time to work while you wait for your exit, so how do you make it bearable? Your notice period can be your worst nightmare, or an opportunity to close a chapter on your own terms. The experience you have is completely within your control. Is there such a thing as...

The oppressive structures in our world don't just just exist on a societal level. They also show up in medicine, and oftentimes, we unknowingly internalize them. When parts of our identity differ from the society's assumption of what a doctor looks like, going to bat for ourselves can be an uphill battle. How do we identify ours and others internalized biases? Why does this become a hurdle to us getting paid what we’re worth and optimizing our contracts? In this episode, we’re going...

In the career trajectory of female physicians, we constantly feel the need to do more to be successful. Whether that's seeing more patients, having more on our daily agenda, or working harder for an equal salary. But what if all this extra work is coming at the expense of much needed, well-deserved rest? If we don’t actively prioritize periods of rest, and we don’t take pauses, we’re setting ourselves up for failure. How do you know if you’re missing out on opportunities for rest? What...

In coaching, there’s a concept known as ‘The Manual’ - an unspoken set of rules we hold other people to without their knowledge. In a negotiation scenario, this line of thinking can be problematic, counter-productive and destructive to our ability to really advocate for ourselves. Our employers aren’t automatically aware of the specific core values we bring to an organization. Expecting them to “just know” erodes our confidence, and holds us back from optimizing our employment...

Negotiation can either be an antagonistic, competitive tug-of-war, or a relationship-building process where two sides come together in an agreement based on value. Even though it sounds contradictory, the greatest barrier to a successful negotiation is the fear of conflict, and if we want to sharpen our agreement-making skills, getting comfortable with it is essential. How do we fully advocate for ourselves without alienating the other party? What are the most counter-productive things...

The pandemic brought on a lot of changes that directly affected physicians, but as we slowly start to recover from the crisis, data around the real impact is starting to emerge. Thanks to the latest MGMA DataDive, we have a ton of interesting and even promising trends to consider and work with. There was a collective concern around how badly compensation would backslide because of the global crisis, but the data isn’t as bad as we thought it would be. What does this data tell us...

Human beings are programmed to see the world in A or B options, and this fosters a dichotomous way of thinking that works against us. When we show up to a negotiation with this mentality in tow, we risk leaving massive wins on the table. In a negotiation, it’s not just option A or option B - there’s an entire alphabet available to us, and we can access it if we shift our thinking. How do we break from the self-imposed limitation of dichotomous thinking? What are some of the amazing...

As the survival instinct of the pandemic fades and more people start considering if their jobs are really serving them, the resignation of at least 30% of the workforce is anticipated. But before we make any move, we have to make sure the things that weren’t serving us in our last job don’t follow us to the next one. If we have an unhealthy relationship with our work, no job change will bring us closer to a career that serves us. How can we tell if the toxic trait we are experiencing...

In any negotiation, we’re better equipped and poised for success when we prepare for all the ways our requests could be shot down before the conversation even begins. Walking into a negotiation unprepared puts us at an immediate disadvantage - and in the worst position to advocate for ourselves. By deliberately and strategically crafting our responses ahead of time, we’re more likely to get the package we want. In the things that you’re asking for, what are the reasons the other side...

Women have been conditioned to believe that wanting a salary that reflects our value is an act of greed. This is not a mindset built for optimizing your success. While there are societal constructs that hold us back, carrying around beliefs that don’t serve us is a huge barrier too. We have enough barriers to contend with already so taking our self doubt off the list makes the path to what we want a lot smoother. How do we combat the belief that wanting a better package is selfish?...

As female physicians, we are battling systemic barriers that collectively keep us from earning millions more, but there are also factors we have a lot of control over. Confusion is one of them. We all know that sitting in confusion is not helpful, but we do it anyway, and set ourselves back significantly in the negotiating process. An energy and mindset of confusion is not where we need to be. We can’t achieve anything useful from a headspace of indecision, hesitation and...

If we don’t know what we’re up against in the negotiation process, we can’t strategize a path to a package that reflects our worth. We need to be able to go to bat for ourselves, and that’s difficult to do when the biggest obstacle is what we believe about ourselves. How do you go from worrying that you don’t offer enough to feeling like you do? How do seemingly benign beliefs cascade into us robbing ourselves of our potential? In this episode, we kick off a three-part series where...

Saying yes to everything is a seemingly harmless act and the default response we’ve been conditioned to give, but does it actually serve us? When I look at this issue through the lens of physicians in the workforce, I can see the negative effects. Most of us struggle to say no to things that don’t align with us and this is evident in the alarming levels of physician burnout we’re seeing. As we become more deliberate about going after what serves us, we have to really get acquainted...

Group negotiations are something we’re starting to see more of in the post-2020 healthcare landscape. While it presents a whole new layer of complexity for physicians, negotiating as a collective can actually work in our favor. It’s still possible for us to negotiate contracts that reflect what we’re worth, and we can even achieve wins for entire departments and specialties. This doesn’t happen in a vacuum, though. We need to do our homework. How do we evaluate what’s most important...

We spend a lot of time on the specifics of our contracts, but today we’re going to pivot and focus on the reason behind our negotiating efforts - the personal priorities that drive our decisions. In the negotiating process, we really have the opportunity to tweak our schedules so they work for us, our families and our spouses. Sometimes it feels like the job invades every part of our lives, and we end up with very little time to nurture our relationships. How do we make time for those...

Most high achievers were raised to believe that hard work will always get rewarded. This belief is untrue and harmful, and the root of the burnout and overworking culture in medicine. We carry the belief that being tired all the time is the price we pay for success and excellence. We put ourselves under pressure to do it all, and work jobs that weren’t even designed with our wellbeing in mind. Attaching our value to our productivity and overworking has tripled our risk of disease and...

A growing number of women have moved into the breadwinner role in their households, but very few are prepared for what it entails. As a result, we struggle to make financial choices that position us for the lives that we want. The subconscious belief that we would never be main earners impacts some of the most professionally successful women. If we don’t understand how critical it is to build wealth, it’s hard for our professional success to translate to long-term financial...

Understanding the other side of a negotiation is important in our ability to present our value, and come to an agreement that serves both parties. But there’s one part of a physician contract that does no favors for a physician, and that’s non-compete clauses. A non-compete is nothing more than a greed-based legal clause that at best guilts you to stay in a job, and at the very worst keeps you handcuffed to a toxic work environment even after you’ve left the position. Non-competes...

The law states that male and female physicians should be earning the same, but time and time again, the data has proven that this is not the case. Unfair pay structures and circumstances impact female doctors, and they all add up to an uphill battle for equal pay. It’s not just that female physicians are earning less generally. The specialties we dominate are paid less. We are funneled away from the higher-paying specialties. There also aren’t enough women in leadership advocating for...

In the negotiation process, we have to advocate for ourselves and work towards signing a contract that aligns with our goals and our worth. Every contract is going to be different, but there are key common areas that we, as physicians, often overlook to our own detriment. There are big areas where there’s room for negotiation at best, and at worst, variability that might not benefit us. It’s also key to understand what we’re signing, and even though our lawyers may have the knowledge,...