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Lessons in the Messy Middle Reflection

by Dr. Tonya Caylor
Jun 19, 2025

“Celebrate the abundance within troubles.” – Will Miller, MD, Annals of Family Medicine, 2010 📸 Thanks to Jay Fetter for the reminder and this powerful slide in Atlanta last week where the year long STFM CBME pilot project wrapped up.

The CBME pilot participants showed us what it looks like to lead through the mess. They navigated growing pains, limited time and faculty, skeptical colleagues and trainees, and institutional inertia to create meaningful change. And in the process, they uncovered real wins — strategies, innovation, cultural shifts, and momentum for what’s next. Even the missteps offered value: what Amy Edmondson calls “strategic failures” - the kinds of lessons that only emerge when a pilot is designed well enough to test what matters.

Trials don’t just test us. They clarify, reshape, and sometimes even expand what’s possible—if we let them.

Reflections:

- What hidden gifts have come from the challenges you’ve faced recently?

- What does positive abundance look like for you—even in trials?

Wishing you a joy-filled, abundance-finding, perspective-shifting kind of week. —Tonya

 

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