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Physician Career Architect ยท Pilot Cohort

You trained to save lives.
Nobody trained you to save your own.

Six weeks with a small cohort of physicians, learning to redesign your practice so it stops eating the parts of life you actually came here for โ€” date nights, soccer games, vacations you don't spend on charts, and a retirement without regret.

Apply for the pilot cohort See who it's for โ†’
6
Weeks
8โ€“12
Physicians
10
Workbook sections
1
Living blueprint
The pattern

Medical training builds excellent clinicians. It quietly costs them everything else.

You came into medicine as a whole person. Somewhere between the third year of residency and the fifth year of practice, the rest of you got smaller. The hobbies went first. Then the friendships outside medicine. Then the dinners that didn't end with you opening the laptop. Eventually the version of you your family actually knew โ€” the one who was present at the table, not just at it.

You tell yourself this is the cost of the privilege of wearing the white coat. That patients come first. That this is the season. That things will settle down after fellowship, after the contract, after the kids are older, after the next inflection point. They don't.

The truth is harder and more useful: medical training over-developed your capacity to absorb other people's needs and under-developed your capacity to protect your own life. You aren't broken. You are the expected output of a rigorous system that taught you to be a clinician and forgot to teach you to be a person.

This cohort exists because being a good doctor was never supposed to require disappearing as a human. Our work together is to redesign your practice so it stops costing you the life you've been postponing.

"You don't need a different career. You need a career that gives you back to your life."

Dr. Ben Reinking ยท The Developing Doctor
Fit

Who this is โ€” and isn't โ€” for

This is for you if

  • iYou can name the last time you sat through a kid's soccer game without checking your phone โ€” and it's been too long.
  • iiYou leave the hospital but the hospital doesn't leave you. The charts come home. The stress comes home. The version of you that walks in the door isn't the version your family deserves.
  • iiiYou've taken vacations where you spent the first three days finishing notes and the last two dreading Monday.
  • ivYou've started doing math on retirement โ€” not because you want to leave medicine, but because you want to find out if there's still a you left underneath the physician.
  • vYou don't want to quit. You want to figure out how to be a doctor and still be a person.

This isn't for you if

  • iYou're looking for a quick fix or a generic burnout course.
  • iiYou think the answer is just to work harder or care less.
  • iiiYou want a job board, contract negotiation service, or career-pivot consultant.
  • ivYou aren't willing to look honestly at the trades you've been making, or to renegotiate them.
  • vYou want someone to hand you the answer instead of teaching you how to find your own.
What you walk out with

A blueprint for the work โ€” and for the life it's supposed to serve.

By the end of week six you'll have a 10-section document โ€” built from evidence-based frameworks and your own honest reflection. It captures who you are, what you actually value, the direction you're choosing, and the practices that will keep your life intact while you're choosing it. Not notes. Not theory. A living blueprint you'll come back to quarterly for years.

The Developing Doctor

The Career Architecture Document

A Physician's Personal Blueprint
Identify ยท Align ยท Develop ยท Sustain

Inside the document

  1. Why I Am HereThe pattern that brought you
  2. What Training Built & MissedAn honest audit
  3. My Core ValuesThe five that guide
  4. My Time & My ValuesWhere hours actually go
  5. My Signature StrengthsVIA + zone of contribution
  6. My Communication ProfileDISC + EIQ inventory
  7. My Career CompassForward ยท back ยท lateral ยท out
  8. My 12-Month ArchitectureThree goals, three intentions
  9. My Energy Replenishment PlanHow you refill
  10. My CommitmentOne sentence forward
The curriculum

Six weeks. Four phases. One blueprint.

Phase I
Identify

See what the work has cost โ€” and what's worth protecting

Before you can change anything, you have to name it honestly. We look clearly at the moment that brought you here, what your training built and what it missed, and the values that actually guide your best decisions โ€” including the ones outside the hospital.

  • Why I am here
  • What training built & missed
  • My core values
Phase II
Align

Match how you spend your days to who you actually are

Diagnosis isn't enough. We map how you actually spend your time, the character strengths that energize you, and the communication style that shapes every conversation โ€” at the bedside, and at the dinner table. Alignment is where self-knowledge becomes actionable.

  • Time & values audit
  • Signature strengths (VIA)
  • Communication profile
  • Conversations to handle differently
Phase III
Develop

Redesign the practice so the rest of your life can come back

Now you architect the next chapter. Which direction are you choosing โ€” forward, backward, lateral, or outside? And what specific goals and intentions will protect your life while the career evolves? This is where the work stops being reflective and starts being structural.

  • The career compass
  • Three SMART goals
  • Three intentions
Phase IV
Sustain

Build the practices that keep you whole, year after year

The architecture only matters if you maintain it. We name the energy practices that will sustain you, build a quarterly self-review ritual, and distill everything into the single sentence you'll carry forward โ€” into Monday, into the next contract, into the life you're now choosing on purpose.

  • Energy replenishment plan
  • Quarterly review ritual
  • One-sentence commitment
Format & logistics

How the cohort runs

Length
Six weeks
Plus quarterly check-ins for one year after.
Cohort size
8โ€“12 physicians
Personally selected by Dr. Reinking.
Sessions
Live, small-group
[ Saturday AM or weekday evening โ€” TBD ]
Workbook
The Career Architecture Document
Built section-by-section across six weeks.
Community
Private cohort space
[ Platform โ€” TBD ]
After the program
Quarterly check-ins
Plus optional 1:1 ascension path.

ย 

Who's leading

The work I built because I needed it first.

I'm Dr. Ben Reinking. I built this cohort because I'm the physician it was made for.

I trained the way you trained. I worked the way you've been working. And I watched myself become smaller and smaller as a person while I got more and more accomplished as a clinician. The career was thriving. The rest of me was disappearing.

Medical training taught me to be a doctor. It didn't teach me to be a husband, a father, or a human being who happens to practice medicine. So I went looking for what would, and built what I couldn't find.

The frameworks in this cohort aren't motivational. They are evidence-based, field-tested, and built specifically for how physicians actually think. They are the work I needed at an inflection point. They are the work I now do with physicians who are at theirs.

โ€” Ben
Credentials & clinical background below โ†“
Credentials

A practicing physician โ€” leading other physicians who are still in it.

This isn't theory from someone who left medicine. The frameworks come from inside the practice โ€” and from the credential that requires more documented coaching hours with physicians than nearly any other.

MCPDC Master Certified
Specialized coaching credential
Master Certified Physician Development Coach
A specialized credential awarded specifically for coaching physicians at career inflection points. Held in addition to active membership in the International Coaching Federation (ICF).
Clinical practice
Pediatric Cardiologist
Board Certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Cardiology. Active clinical practice.
Leadership
Division Director
Active leadership role inside an academic medical center.
Academic appointment
Professor, University of Iowa
Former member of the Faculty Promotions Advisory Committee โ€” direct experience with the systems physicians navigate from the inside.
Assessments
DISC + EIQ Certified
Practitioner-level certification in the two assessments used inside the cohort.
Pilot pricing

The cost of getting your life back, once.

Physician Career Architect

Pilot cohort ยท September 2026 start
$997
Pilot cohort only Future cohorts begin at $1,497
  • Six weeks of live, small-group sessions with Dr. Reinking
  • The Career Architecture Document workbook
  • Cohort community space throughout the program
  • Four quarterly check-ins for one year after the program
  • Optional 1:1 ascension path at cohort-grad pricing
Apply for the pilot cohort
Application takes about 5 minutes. Ben reads every one.
Questions

What physicians ask before applying

Why an application instead of just enrolling?
Because the pilot is small โ€” 8 to 12 physicians โ€” and the work asks you to be genuinely honest with yourself and the group. The application helps Ben confirm fit on both sides before anyone commits money or time. It takes about five minutes.
I'm not sure I want to change careers โ€” I just want to live differently. Is this still for me?
Yes. In fact, this is exactly the cohort for that. Most physicians who do this work don't change specialties or leave medicine. They redesign how they practice โ€” what they say yes to, what they protect, how they show up at home โ€” so the career stops costing them their life. Phase III walks through all four directions a career can move, but the destination is the same regardless: a life you can actually live in.
What's the time commitment between sessions?
Plan for 60โ€“90 minutes of focused workbook time per week, plus the live session. You're building one section of your Career Architecture Document each week. Some physicians do the work in one sitting; others split it across the week.
What if I miss a session?
Sessions are recorded for cohort members. The work is structured so you can stay on pace even if you miss a live meeting โ€” though the live discussion is where most of the breakthrough happens, so plan to be there when you can.
Is this CME?
Not currently. CME accreditation is being explored for future cohorts but is not in place for the pilot.
What if it's not a fit after I apply?
Ben will tell you, with reasoning, and recommend something better suited โ€” either the self-paced course, a future cohort, or a different resource entirely. No pressure, no upsell.
What's the refund policy?
If after the first session the cohort isn't what you expected, you can request a full refund within seven days. After week one, the program is non-refundable โ€” but transferable to a future cohort if life intervenes.

You don't have to choose between being a great doctor and being a whole person.

If something here recognized you, that's the signal. Apply for the pilot.

Apply for the pilot cohort
8โ€“12 seats ยท Personally selected by Dr. Reinking

Apply

Reserve your seat in the pilot cohort.

Eight to twelve seats. Personally selected. Ben reads every application and responds within 48 hours.