Joy in Family Medicine – Stories & Reflections
Lessons, lightbulb moments, and honest reflections from life inside and outside medicine - served with a side of perspective.
Tags: mentorship
Showing 12 results:
What the Critic Taught Me
I was talking with a physician recently who started his own practice.
Someone had asked about him in a local Facebook group. There were about thirty responses. Not just “he’s good,” but detailed, generous paragraphs about his skill, empathy, time, and care.
And then one line:
“My mom saw him and ...
by Dr. Tonya Caylor —
Apr 23, 2026
adaptability
attention
awareness
beliefs
boundaries
burnout
coaching
comparison
confidence
criticism
delegation
development
emotions
empathy
feeback
focus
grace
growth
identity
improvement
interpretation
leadership
learning
medicine
mentorship
mindset
narrative
perspective
physician
practice
purpose
reflection
reputation
resilience
reviews
selfworth
trigger
validation
values
wellbeing
Don't Game Tape Alone
Last week, I was sitting in a hotel conference room in Chicago at the AMA Precision Medicine Conference listening to Dr. Lara Varpio from the Perelman School of Medicine talk about agency. Not the vague "you have more power than you think" kind, but the research kind.
She offered four of the six ...
by Dr. Tonya Caylor —
Apr 04, 2026
advising
agency
awareness
coaching
collaboration
communication
connection
constraints
conversation
culture
data
development
discursive
education
empowerment
faculty
feedback
growth
guidance
improvement
insight
leadership
learning
meaning
medicine
mentorship
mindset
partnership
performance
practice
reflection
relational
relationships
residency
self-awareness
support
systemic
systems
temporal
transformation
trust
Marine Survival Weekend (From the Archives)
As a faculty member of the Alaska Family Medicine Residency program, I had my share of teaching during our infamous Wilderness Medicine Weekend excursion. In January, it involved snow cave construction, and in May, it involved marine safety. The first spring, I participated with 2 other faculty m...
by Dr. Tonya Caylor —
Feb 23, 2026
accountability
adaptability
alaska
awareness
education
embarassment
experience
growth
humility
insight
leadership
learning
medicine
mentorship
perspective
professionalism
reflection
reframing
residency
resilience
responsibility
safety
teaching
teamwork
trust
wilderness
wisdom
The Casting Room
I’ve been reflecting on how easily past training experiences (or any experience for that matter) can be oversimplified by those who didn’t live them.
It took me a minute to understand why that bothered me. It's because those oversimplified accounts tell a very narrow story of some of the very exp...
by Dr. Tonya Caylor —
Jan 31, 2026
burnout
compassion
grace
healing
healthcare
humanity
humility
kindness
medicine
mentorship
perfectionism
professionalism
reflection
residency
resilience
stress
suffering
surgery
training
trauma
vulnerability
witnessing
When Influence Stops Influencing
Every physician leader I coach eventually reaches the same moment. They’ve done the work: gathered data, built coalitions, shared meaningful stories, aligned it to the core corporate values, used every bit of their Crucial Conversations skill set, emotionally intelligenced the nuances, and framed...
by Dr. Tonya Caylor —
Dec 10, 2025
acceptance
agency
alignment
boundaries
burnout
change
clarity
coalition
community
connection
discernment
energy
exhaustion
frustration
influence
integrity
leadership
mentorship
metrics
perspective
process
purpose
reality
reflection
regulation
resistance
strategy
systems
values
Quiet Quitting, Nike’s Reframe, and the Real Risk in Medicine
Quiet quitting is no longer just a workplace buzzword. A new study in Family Medicine described how residency leaders are seeing disengagement, professionalism concerns, and strategic “time protection” among trainees. The authors traced this disengagement back to multiple causes: generational shi...
by Dr. Tonya Caylor —
Sep 13, 2025
burnout
challenges
collaboration
commitment
communication
cringe culture
discernment
disengagement
education
efficiency
effort
faculty
frustration
generations
growth
mentorship
motivation
patient care
professionalism
quiet quitting
rebranding
reflection
residency
selectivity
sustainability
systemic pressures
time protection
trainees
trust
work values
workplace
The Award Not Won: Story and Reflection
It’s that season again. Graduation programs. Thank-you speeches. Awards. A flurry of new titles, public praise, and quiet appreciation.
We do this because it matters. Recognition is powerful. Appreciation even more so. But in the messiness of human systems, it doesn’t always land how we intend.
I...
by Dr. Tonya Caylor —
Jun 27, 2025
acknowledgment
alignment
appreciation
authenticity
belonging
care
celebration
community
compassion
connection
contribution
encouragement
equity
gratitude
humanity
humility
impact
inclusion
integrity
leadership
mentorship
mindfulness
presence
process
purpose
recognition
reflection
service
stewardship
support
systems
values
visibility
well-being
Residency 2.0 Story and Reflection
As most of you know, though my full-time work is in coaching within residency programs, I’ve stayed clinically active—filling in both at the Alaska Family Medicine Residency and Anchorage Neighborhood Health, our local FQHC.
Since 2007, I’ve had the privilege of watching over 200 residents grow, ...
by Dr. Tonya Caylor —
Jun 12, 2025
affirmation
appreciation
belonging
calm
calm contagion
community
connection
continuity
culture
emotional contagion
gratitude
groundedness
healing environment
intentionality
joy in medicine
kindness
leadership
legacy
mentorship
organizational health
ripple effect
role modeling
support
systems thinking
workplace culture
workplace wellbeing
Reflection: Passing it On
This past week, I had the great honor of sitting in a (virtual) room with five individuals who have dedicated decades of their careers to leadership in graduate medical education (GME).
The idea for this gathering started one morning when I woke up thinking about how tough leading in GME can be. ...
by Dr. Tonya Caylor —
Jun 12, 2025
collaborative growth
collective wisdom
community
connection
cultivation
honoring
humility
impact
influence
inspiration
intergenerational learning
knowledge transfer
leadership
legacy
longevity
meaning making
mentorship
reflective practice
ripple effect
slow leadership
stewardship
storytelling
transparency
vision casting
vulnerability
wisdom
Filtering Voices: Story and Reflection
Like many medical students, I went back and forth on what specialty I really loved. OB/GYN? Sports Medicine? Internal Medicine? Rheum? Endocrine? Psychiatry? Adolescent Medicine? (Yes, all of them!)
I also had a fantastic role model in my dad, an outpatient family doc beloved by his patients. And...
by Dr. Tonya Caylor —
Jun 12, 2025
affirmation
belonging
choice
clarity
compassion
confidence
courage
decision making
doubt
encouragement
identity
influence
insecurity
integrity
internal guidance
judgment
medical culture
mentorship
perception
power dynamics
purpose
reassurance
reflection
respect
self-trust
soundtracks
validation
values
voice
wisdom
Running Up Mountains Story and Reflection
Have you ever been isolated during a race? Me neither, until I was. I participated in a small fundraiser weeknight race after work in late May several years back. It was my first (and last) mountain race.
It was a race up "Peak 3" in the Alaska Chugach Range, with the finish line at the top, smal...
by Dr. Tonya Caylor —
Jun 10, 2025
accomplishment
comparison
compassion
disappointment
disorientation
empathy
exhaustion
expectations
experience
fear
fear response
frustration
growth
humility
identity
isolation
journey
mentorship
metaphor
mindset
normalization
overwhelm
parallel
perseverance
reflection
resilience
self-compassion
transition
uncertainty
vulnerability
Laughs and Confidence, Story and Reflection
I was recently discussing confidence in the lecture setting with a few faculty physicians, and it brought up some memories.
One of the first didactics I taught as a new faculty member was 9 years out of residency. (Actual photo around that time of me as new faculty, 2007-2008 above.) I was presen...
by Dr. Tonya Caylor —
Jun 10, 2025
adaptability
authenticity
confidence
connection
courage
credibility
didactic
education
expertise
growth mindset
humility
humor
identity
imperfection
imposter-phenomenon
insecurity
learning
mentorship
partnership
presence
presentation
reflection
relatability
resilience
self-acceptance
support
teaching
teamwork
transparency
vulnerability
Joy in Family Medicine – Stories & Reflections
