In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Sarah Smith, a physician from Australia and The Charting Coach for Physicians and Clinicians. Dr. Smith has practiced medicine in both Australia and Canada and has experienced firsthand the growing administrative burden that many physicians face.

After years of long evenings and weekends spent finishing charts, Dr. Smith began asking a simple but powerful question: Is this sustainable? That question led her to rethink how clinical days are structured and eventually develop practical strategies that help physicians complete their documentation during the workday instead of hours later.

We talk about the reality of modern clinical practice, seeing large numbers of patients while managing charting, inbox messages, results, and administrative demands. Dr. Smith explains why the math of the clinical day often doesn’t work and how small adjustments in workflow, teamwork, and mindset can begin to close the gap.

One of her core ideas is simple but challenging: see the patient and close the chart. While that may sound impossible at first, she explains how incremental changes and better questions can gradually make it achievable.

The larger takeaway is this: while the system may be imperfect, physicians still have choices in how they approach their day. Sometimes the first step toward sustainability is simply asking, What small change could make today better?

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