When I accepted my first faculty position, I thought I understood the job: I would teach. Then I received my first workload assignment. There was something about credit hours, clinical ratios, and committee meetings, and I stared at it the way a new grad stares at a 12-lead EKG for the first time. I recognized the words, but not in those particular combinations. Nobody explains faculty workload to clinicians before they make the jump.

When students struggle in clinical, it can feel personal. We worry about patient safety. We worry about fairness. We worry about whether we missed something earlier. And if we’re honest, we sometimes worry about how much time and emotional energy this is about to take. The instinct is often to either tighten control or pull back completely. More paperwork. More warnings. Or, on the other end, quiet hope that things will somehow improve on their own. Coaching lives in the m