Why Coaching Might Be the Missing Piece in Your Healthcare Career

What happens when you combine a lifetime of service, leadership, and a deep desire to uplift others?
In this inspiring episode, Dr. Andrea Austin welcomes Paula Drivas, as she shares how her changemaking story started at age 13 as a candy striper in Queens and how a simple request to transfer to the emergency department shaped her life’s purpose. She walks listeners through an expansive 33-year career spanning emergency medicine, internal medicine, orthopedics, urgent care, academia, and leadership, culminating in her transition into coaching and medical administration.

This conversation honors the evolution of medicine over three decades, from the loss of autonomy to intensifying metrics, and how Paula found her own path by listening to her heart, embracing spontaneity, and pursuing an MBA to impact healthcare at a systems level.

A pivotal moment arrived when Paula experienced coaching for the first time during the pandemic, sparking an “aha” that shifted everything. She describes how coaching unlocked clarity she didn’t know she needed and how it inspired her to create the Provider Coach Project to offer free access to coaching for medical students, PA students, nurses, residents, and clinicians.

The episode explores the urgent need for coaching in medicine, the role of value work, the emotional toll of modern healthcare, the DISC assessment as a tool for team growth, and why no one should have to navigate a healthcare career alone.

This is a deeply human, energizing conversation about purpose, service, and building a future where every healthcare professional feels supported and empowered.

You’ll Hear How They:

• Recognize changemaking moments early and follow them

 
• Navigate a nonlinear healthcare career with courage and openness

 
• Balance patient care with leadership, business demands, and personal growth

 
• Use coaching to unlock self-awareness, purpose, and sustainable decision-making

 
• Challenge the financial barriers that keep trainees from accessing coaching

 
• Apply DISC assessment insights to strengthen teams and improve communication

 
• Address burnout, emotional labor, and the realities of emergency medicine

 
• Build new models of support for clinicians across all stages of training

 

If you’ve ever questioned your next step, felt the weight of modern medicine, or wondered how coaching could shift your career, this episode is for you.

About the Guest:

“Follow your heart. Never say never. You don’t know where life is going to take you.” – Paula Drivas

Paula Drivas, PA-C, MBA is a Master Certified Physician Coach, seasoned emergency medicine PA, urgent care medical director, and founder of the Provider Coach Project, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing financial barriers to coaching for healthcare professionals and trainees.

Over her 33-year career, Paula has practiced emergency medicine, internal medicine, urgent care, orthopedics, and medical education, and has served in multiple leadership roles. She holds an MBA and trained as a coach at the Physician Coaching Institute.
Paula is passionate about empowerment, reflection, and helping clinicians reconnect to meaning and joy in their work.

📍 Connect with Paula

Website: https://www.providerscoachproject.org

📚 Resources + Mentions

• Physician Coaching Institute (https://physiciancoachinginstitute.com/)
Provider Coach Project (https://www.providerscoachproject.org)
DISC Assessment for communication + leadership (https://www.discprofile.com/everything-disc/leadership)
Jen Sincero — You Are a Badass (https://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Badass%C2%AE-Doubting-Greatness/dp/0762447699)
Jefferson Fisher — “Leave it on the table” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi6P-OQXDGc)

🔑 Top 3 Key Takeaways:
• Coaching is essential, not optional, for the future of healthcare: Paula highlights how coaching helps clinicians make value-aligned decisions, navigate burnout, and reclaim agency—especially in a system strained by complexity and moral distress.
• Your career doesn’t have to be linear. Follow your heart: Paula’s journey—from adolescent volunteer to emergency medicine PA to medical director and nonprofit founder—shows the power of staying open to unexpected paths.
• No one should navigate medicine alone: Through the Provider Coach Project, Paula advocates for accessible coaching that removes financial barriers and ensures every trainee and clinician has support, clarity, and a safe space to grow.

🩺 About the Host:

Dr. Andrea Austin is a board-certified emergency physician, educator, and passionate advocate for system-level change in healthcare. As the creator and host of Heartline: Changemaking in Healthcare, Dr. Austin brings curiosity, compassion, and bold honesty to conversations with leaders who are challenging the norms and reshaping medicine from the inside out.
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