Joe Sherman

I am a pediatrician with over 35 years of clinical, academic, and leadership experience focusing primarily on teaching and healthcare delivery to underserved and medically complex children. I’ve practiced medicine in the District of Columbia, Tacoma, Seattle, Uganda, Bolivia, and several other countries. I now live in Seattle with my wife Becky and have 3 children in college.

Despite much professional success, I’ve struggled with anxiety and episodes of burnout. In 2009, after spending 4 years living and working in Bolivia with my family, I returned to the U.S. and my career as a pediatrician at an academic health center. I soon found the institutional, educational, and patient care demands placed upon me to be overwhelming. I left clinical medicine temporarily to reflect on why I became a physician in the first place and whether I should return. I wrestled with my identity being defined by my profession rather than who I was independent of being a physician.

After a year of reflection, discernment, and support from family and friends, I was able to identify my core values and integrate them into my future career decision-making. I returned to part-time pediatric practice while developing the skills to accompany other physicians, individually and in groups, to re-discover their passion for medicine. This led me to my current career as a coach and facilitator for health professionals.