Certified Academic Medicine Coach™: Coaching Skills for Faculty Who Support Trainees

Academic medicine runs on faculty supporting medical students, residents, fellows, and junior colleagues through some of the hardest transitions in their careers — advising, supervising, evaluating. Coaching is a distinct skill from any of that: instead of offering answers or direction from your own experience, it’s about asking questions that help the other person find their own clarity. Most faculty were never taught how to do this.

This 3-month program equips a cohort of 12 or more faculty from a single academic institution with practical coaching skills — not a new leadership framework, but a specific, ICF-grounded skill set that faculty can bring into the advising, supervisory, and mentoring roles they already hold. Developed and piloted in 2019 with a group of 12 academic faculty, the program contains the core elements of our Healthcare Peer Coaching Fundamentals™ curriculum plus select modules from our Certified Physician Development Coach™ program.

Faculty as coach: Listens, connects, empowers, and builds trust with trainees
Faculty as highest self: Self-aware, other-aware, and able to model the growth they want to see in trainees
Faculty as thought partner: Supports the professional and personal growth of medical students, residents, fellows, and junior colleagues through a coaching approach — asking rather than telling

The Physician Coaching Institute is Accredited by the International Coach Federation

National Momentum Behind Coaching in Academic Medicine

This program reflects a broader shift already underway in academic medicine. The AMA held its inaugural Coaching Summit — “Empowering Learners and Educators Through Coaching” — August 13–14, 2026, in Chicago, bringing together educators, program directors, and academic leaders from across undergraduate medical education, graduate medical education, and continuing professional development to share evidence and best practices on coaching’s role in training the next generation of physicians.

The AMA’s ChangeMedEd® initiative has also published a series of faculty-focused coaching handbooks, including Coaching in Graduate Medical Education — A Faculty Handbook, and runs an annual Academic Coaching Implementation Workshop for institutions building their own coaching programs.

Coaching is quickly becoming core infrastructure in academic medical education, not an optional add-on. This program gives your institution a fast, practical way to build that capability internally — with faculty trained by an ICF-accredited coach training school with 15 years of experience training physicians and academic leaders in coaching.

Why PCI for This Program

Other institutions are building academic coaching capability too — which is exactly why it matters who trains your faculty. PCI has spent over 15 years training physicians and academic leaders specifically in coaching, not general leadership development, and our curriculum is built directly around the International Coaching Federation’s core coaching competencies — the same standard used to credential professional coaches worldwide. The AMA’s own faculty handbook on coaching points institutions toward ICF-affiliated training when they want a more in-depth program. PCI has been ICF-accredited since 2008.

Our programs are recognized for their rigor, not just their content: PCI is accredited by the ICF as a Level 1 provider, and our graduates go on to hold ICF credentials at the ACC and PCC level.

For faculty who want to go further, this program isn’t a dead end — it’s a clear, direct on-ramp. Because it satisfies the foundation-training prerequisite for our flagship Certified Physician Development Coach™ program and comes with a $1,000 tuition credit toward it, faculty who discover a passion for coaching have an easy, discounted path to a full professional coaching credential, rather than having to start over with a different school.

Learning Benefits for Leader Participants and their Organization

Personal and Professional Growth of the Participant:

Develop self-knowledge and learn to manage your impact on colleagues
Develop emotional intelligence for leadership effectiveness
Integrate coaching frameworks in your role as leader or Faculty advisor to support professional development of your direct reports or junior physicians
Learn specific coaching skills and techniques you can apply to multiple situations in the course of leading your team or collaborating with colleagues
Learn how to provide more specific and actionable feedback and engage in more meaningful interactions as your develop junior team members
Integrate your new coaching skills with previous leadership training
Learn in a highly interactive and competency-based learning format; refine competencies through immediate and supportive feedback
Go beyond concepts and immediately apply practical skills every day in your role

Positive Impact For the Organization:

Leaders with greater self-awareness and proficiency in coaching communication are able to retain individual talent and foster best in team performance
Leaders with non-judgement presence and coaching competencies are able to develop the potential of others, leading to greater fulfillment and growth among clinical colleagues
Leader-coaches can support clinician engagement and retention
Leader-coaches can instill confidence of junior clinicians as they develop a career path aligned with their core strengths and core values
A cadre of leader-coaches inside the organization with these Healthcare Academic Medicine Coach competencies will use a standard and evidence-based approach to coaching support

Program Curriculum and Structure

The Certified Academic Medicine Coach™ program curriculum consists of eight Learning Modules across four Competency Areas:

Coaching Foundation	Emotional Intelligence	Authentic Influence	Supporting Trainees
Module 1 Essentials of Coaching, ICF Core Coaching Competencies	Module 3 Self-Awareness: Understanding Hardwired Style	Module 5 Dependable Personal Strengths	Module 7 Supporting Individuals in Personal Growth
Module 2 Coaching Approach for the Faculty Coach.	Module 4 Self-Management: "Flexing" Your Leadership Communication	Module 6 Coaching Presence as Leadership Presence	Module 8 Supporting Career Resilience

Language used: English

Eligibility for Participation

This program is offered exclusively to academic institutions ready to commit 12 or more faculty members to a cohort. It’s built for faculty whose roles already involve advising, supervising, or mentoring medical students, residents, fellows, or junior colleagues — program directors, division chiefs, clerkship directors, associate/vice chairs for education, academic deans, and senior faculty who mentor or advise trainees. The program teaches coaching as a distinct, additional skill for these roles: participants learn to ask questions that build a trainee’s own awareness and judgment, rather than defaulting to giving answers or direction the way mentoring and advising typically do.

The goal isn’t just individual skill-building: the cohort becomes a network of faculty who can bring a coaching approach into their existing advising and mentoring relationships, reinforcing that approach across the institution long after the program ends.

Q: I’m interested in this program, but my institution isn’t sponsoring a cohort. What are my options?

A: The Certified Academic Medicine Coach™ program is only available to institutions sponsoring a cohort of 12 or more faculty from that same organization — there’s no individual-enrollment path. It exists mainly to train a large group of faculty quickly and affordably, within a focused time span, as a shared cohort from one institution. If your institution isn’t sponsoring a cohort, Healthcare Peer Coaching Fundamentals™ followed by the Certified Physician Development Coach™ program is the better fit — and in fact, many academic participants go through this path rather than the Academic Medicine Coach program. It trains you at an advanced level, with 98 total training hours and a full ICF Level 1 Certificate (ACC credential), and puts you in a cohort alongside professionals from other organizations, many of them academic, rather than only your own colleagues. Both are open to individual enrollment, so you can start whenever you’re ready, without waiting on your institution to sponsor a cohort.

Certification and CME

Participants complete a PCI Proficiency Portfolio throughout the course of the 3-month training. Successful completion leads to the Certified Academic Medicine Coach™ credential. Participants earn 30 hours of ICF-approved coach-specific education. In addition, up to 20 hours of Category 1 CME credit is available. Individual participants who want to continue on to the professional level can continue on to the Certified Physician Development Coach™ program and the ICF Level 1 Certificate to earn the ICF ACC credential. Graduates of this Certified Academic Medicine Coach receive a $1,000 tuition credit toward the Certified Physician Development Coach™ program.

Program Faculty

Program faculty are ICF-credentialed coaches — several are also ICF-certified mentor coaches — and many are graduates of PCI’s own Certified Physician Development Coach™ program, including several who currently serve as internal coaches, Chief Wellness Officers, or academic program leaders at their own institutions.

Contact us to arrange an introductory meeting and explore how this proven coaching skills program can enhance your leadership approach and positively impact peers, direct report, and junior physicians.