How to Improve Physician Charting Efficiency with Dr. Mary Leung

October 14, 2026

How can physicians improve charting efficiency and finish documentation on time? In this episode of the Academic Medicine Strategy Podcast, Dr. Stacey Ishman speaks with Dr. Mary Leung, a practicing hematologist-oncologist and charting coach, about practical strategies for completing medical charts more efficiently. They discuss mindset, perfectionism, patient documentation, and leadership support to help early-career academic physicians protect their time and improve clinical workflows.

Key Points:

[00:20] How did Dr. Mary Leung learn to finish her charts on time? Dr. Mary Leung shares how she went from spending evenings completing charts, calling patients, and filling prescriptions to consistently leaving work before 5 p.m. Coaching helped her improve efficiency while maintaining her patient load and making more time for her family.

[04:44] How does mindset affect physician documentation? Dr. Leung explains that thoughts influence feelings, actions, and results. Starting the day with a realistic, positive outlook can change how physicians respond to a demanding schedule and approach their documentation responsibilities.

[06:22] How can physicians set realistic goals for completing charts? Physicians can begin with achievable improvements rather than expecting an immediate change in their workday. Dr. Leung recommends setting a realistic goal that stretches current habits, such as leaving earlier than usual with charts completed, and gradually building on that progress.

[08:06] How can physicians write medical notes more efficiently? Physicians can reduce unnecessary documentation by letting go of perfectionism. A useful note should document clinical findings, the plan of care, communication for other clinicians, and information needed for billing. Minor typos that do not change meaning do not always require immediate correction.

[09:48] How can finishing charts during patient visits save time? For outpatient care, Dr. Leung recommends completing the note, orders, and refills for one patient before moving to the next whenever possible. This approach reduces switching between tasks, supports focused listening, and helps physicians finish each encounter more completely.

[11:00] How can department leaders help physicians reduce after-hours EHR work? Leaders can offer coaching or mentoring to identify the specific causes of delayed documentation. Some physicians may struggle with inbox interruptions, while others duplicate work by writing notes multiple times. Understanding the root cause helps leaders provide targeted support and improve timely documentation for patient care.

[12:44] What daily habit can help physicians manage charting more effectively? Dr. Leung recommends maintaining a positive and pleasant perspective throughout the day. She encourages physicians to remind themselves of the attitude they want to carry, even when unexpected clinical demands arise.

Frequently Asked Questions:

How can physicians stop bringing medical charting home after work?

Start by identifying where documentation time is being lost. Complete notes and related tasks during each outpatient encounter when feasible, reduce unnecessary rewriting, and address distractions that interrupt focused work. Set a realistic goal for leaving on time and improve gradually. The best approach depends on the specific barriers affecting your workflow.

Does every medical note need to be perfect?

Dr. Mary Leung explains that a medical note should serve its clinical and administrative purposes. It should document findings, the care plan, communicate relevant information to other clinicians, and support billing. Minor typographical errors that do not change the meaning may not require immediate correction. Clear, useful documentation matters more than unnecessary perfection.

What can academic medicine leaders do to improve physician chart completion?

Leaders can establish coaching or mentoring support for physicians who consistently struggle with timely documentation. The first step is identifying the underlying problem, such as inbox interruptions, frequent distractions, or duplicating documentation. Targeted support can help physicians improve their workflows while ensuring that other clinicians have timely access to essential patient information.

Summary:

How to improve physician charting efficiency starts with realistic goals, focused documentation, and a willingness to let go of unnecessary perfectionism. Dr. Mary Leung also emphasizes the role of leadership in identifying workflow barriers and supporting timely clinical documentation. This week, choose one patient encounter and complete the note, orders, and refills before moving to the next whenever your workflow allows.

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If you'd like to get in touch or suggest a topic:

DM Dr. Stacey Ishman on Instagram at @sishmancoach
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Connect with Dr. Mary Leung:

Dr. Mary Leung is a practicing hematologist-oncologist and charting coach. She founded Shining with Gratitude MD to help physicians improve their work experience and develop more effective habits.

Website: www.shiningwithgratitudemd.com
Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: Mary Leung, MD
Instagram: drmaryleung

Episode Transcript

Podcast with Mary Leung Charting Coach
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to the Academic Medicine Strategy podcast. I'm Stacey Ishman, and I am excited today to have Mary Leung joining us. She is a charting coach who I have the opportunity to know through a whole bunch of different organizations where we overlap and I want everybody to get to learn as much as they can from her on how we can all be better at charting.

So Mary, do you mind giving us your background and letting us know where you are, where you work, and how you became a charting coach? Yes, and thank you so much, Stacey, for having me here today, and I just want to congratulate you on your new book. I just bought it yesterday, and it's arriving tomorrow.

Thank you. Thank you. I'll talk about that in a minute, but tell us a little little bit about you. Yes. I am a full-time hematologist oncologist, and how I got into this journey of becoming a charting coach is that I myself had the problem of charting. Just several years ago I was drowning in charts.

I was just [00:01:00] finishing seeing my patients around 5:00, maybe 4:30, and I would still be doing work. The extra hours that I spent on calling back patients, filling prescriptions, and the charting, and I would bring work home because I wanted to see my children, and that was not sustainable. So fast-forward to the pandemic, I had a taste of being able to leave work on time because I was just seeing a third of my patients, and that was wonderful.

I thought, "What if I could do the same," when I went back to seeing the same number of patients. So then at that time I had, opportunity, time to explore different things. Came across something called life coaching. No clue what that was. Jumped into it. A physic- from physicians, to physicians of this life coaching group, and I worked with a coach, and I was able to just work out that be more efficient, and [00:02:00] slowly I was leaving work 6:30, 6:00, 5:30.

And now, of course I'm back to seeing the same number of patients, about 25 on average- ... a day, and I have been going home before 5:00 consistently. Awesome. Who was the coach you worked with? So I joined the Empowered Women Physicians group- ... with Sunny Smith and and I work with, one of the coaches in there Noelle, and she's been great.

And it was just, more than really just focusing on charting itself. It's really life in general. So it's, how we do one thing is how we do everything. So I really, I think that was my, really life-changing point. Yeah. I will tell you, I also started my business because I joined EWP and I worked with both Noelle, who I think is an amazing coach- Yeah

and Ursula. And obviously Sunny is an amazing coach. And so- Yes ... it's nice to be in a room of people who are all [00:03:00] so positive, so thoughtful, and really helping you figure things out, which is one of the reasons I ended up going into coaching, because the experience- Yeah ... was so fantastic. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about, we hear- I understand how you learned how to chart. How did you decide it was the kind of coach you wanted to be? So that was not my initial decision. I actually didn't even think that I would be a coach. I joined the coaching program being coach, and then I thought I wanted to learn more about it, you know how we doctors like to just get to the bottom of everything.

So I joined a certification program with the Life Coach School just because most physicians seem to be joining that one. And so I got certified and then since I was leaving work on time, I had extra hours besides spending time with my family, I was like what else could I do?" And I saw all these other doctors who were in misery, just frustrated and trying to leave work on time and have a life, and I thought, [00:04:00] "What if I could help them too?"

So that's how I started my, coaching company and so I started to coach physicians one on one to do what I have gone through, and so it's been wonderful. So tell me a little bit about the first time you realized that charting problems are not just about your EHR, that there's a mindset issue going on there.

Tell me what that aha sounded or felt like. Yeah. So I think that was during coaching, I realized that, okay so we're surrounded by different situation circumstances and that we have opinions about those things. So say if you have a situation you can have, you can think of something, by default and, or you can think of it multiple different ways.

You get to decide what to think. And how we think it's, it's affected, really how we feel. And so our... We're emotional beings, and how we feel [00:05:00] affect how we do things. And of course, our actions- really affect our results. So it's that realization.

It seems like such a simple thing, but no one taught me this. Yeah. And it was just like, wow. So you know, if I get up in the morning and think that, oh, today's gonna be a dreadful day, then I'm just gonna feel annoyed, frustrated already before going to work, and that already is setting a not so pleasant tone for my day.

And the whole day just seems like everything is going wrong. It's like I seem to have that lens of just seeing nothing is going right. As opposed to, so I always share that I decide what my day is going to be like in the morning when I wake up, and I choose to think that today's going to be good day no matter what happens.

And I think it is a realistic thing because it's yes, I'm taking into account into [00:06:00] unpleasant surprises, of course, in clinical medicine always. I, especially Fridays, for some reason. And but I'm gonna just make it work. I'm gonna make it a good day in my terms. So then I'm starting off with, just being hopeful and determined to have that happen, and that sets the ph- tone for the day, and that makes a big difference.

So are you saying in the charting world that really starting the day saying, "I'm gonna be successful. I'm gonna be able to close my charts," like that's, set the starting step for you to be able to be actually good at it? Exactly. And the thing is you have to believe what you're saying or what you're thinking.

Yep. You can't just... if you're going home past 7:00 right now and still have, say 15 charts to do, it's not realistic to say that, "Oh, I'm gonna go home by 5:00 with everything done right now." It's gonna happen, but maybe how about just saying that today I'm gonna leave work by 7:30 with everything done.

Just [00:07:00] b- start by little steps and go that way. You want to be realistic about, your situation, but be a little bit of a stretch so you work for it. What's the most common thought you hear from the people you work with about why they have to chart late? The common theme is that there are too many things or too many patients to see.

It is, it's interesting because it is a thought and you can say, "Okay, I have 25 patients to see." Someone may think that, "Oh that's a lot of patients because I normally see 15." Someone else can say that, "Oh, that's not so bad. I see 35." So it's like taking that in perspective that, okay, so you know that you have 25 patients to see, and what do you make it mean?

You can make it mean that, "All right. This is my schedule. I'll make it work," or you can say that, "Oh, boy, how am I gonna do this?" So I think a lot of things, a lot of times it's really to help the physicians realize [00:08:00] that how you think about your day really affects everything else.

Absolutely. So one of the things I know you ordered the book and haven't gotten it to look at it yet, but one of the stories I tell in the book is about charting. And I used to go back and forth when there was, like, paper charts and I would carry them back and forth. And then the mental carrying things back and forth happened after that with the EMR.

And one of the things that helped me significantly was giving up perfectionism in my notes. I can have a typo as long as it doesn't change the meaning. I can set up templates that are really more efficient. What are your top tips for people to actually make it easier to get that note done? Yeah.

I would just say that what, whatever it is that we're talking about right now it doesn't matter if you have AI scribe, if you have the ambient listening, if you're just typing yourself dictation, doesn't matter. The... and what you mentioned is so important, it's really put the perfectionism, out the door basically.

Because so many of us are trained to be perfect. We gotta get straight As, you know- Yeah ... we gotta [00:09:00] have good grades to get into medical school, to get into training programs. But it's what is a note used for? The patient note, it serves a few things. It's for you to document what you find about the patient and what you plan to do with the patient, and to use that to communicate with other clinicians, what that is about, and for billing. So it's, if you satisfy those things, that's already a good enough note. So as you mentioned, it doesn't matter if you have a typo. Sometimes I look back, it's like, "Oh, I have a little typo.

I'm just gonna change that next time." It doesn't matter. It's no big deal. And you also don't want to write a very long note because guess what? When I get a long note I'm like, "Oh, boy." I'm like, "Where is that two lines that I really need to know?" Yeah. So you quickly already scan through things to look at that.

And I think that the important thing is really, as you mentioned, the going back and forth, be it paper or not [00:10:00] paper. So importantly is that for outpatient especially you want to do your best to see one patient, do the chart, and then before you move on. Because, and I, by saying that doing the chart, I mean do the orders, refills, whatever that is about the patient.

Yeah. Because then you can be completely done with that patient before going into the next room so you get better focus. And guess what? That is benefiting you and the patient at the same time because the patient can sense that you're fully present, and you can pay attention to what they're saying.

You can really listen to what they really need, and guess what? Then you're gonna spend less time in the room- Yeah ... and then you just document what you need and then move on. So everything is connected. So one of the things we do is we talk to leaders, and some of them are academic medicine, some of them are in hospital systems.

What if you're a leader and you're seeing Stacey Ishman's name's [00:11:00] always on that no-no list of her charts aren't closed on time. What kind of advice can you give leadership on how they can support their teams? I think it is great to have just like Stacey, you, the work that you do is really important.

The, have some sort of coaching or mentoring program that's just to see, hey if there is someone in the system, that, that is very efficient in charting. Is there someone that can help, that person to, to see what's going on? And I think you really identify the problem.

Is it the the person is being distracted all the time because can't really handle the inbox or all the interruptions? Or is it that the person is actually writing the note a few times? And by a few times I had physician client that told me recently that, "Oh, I would prep by writing it on paper-" Oh, gee

and then go into a room, write more on paper, and then type it in." I'm like, "Why?" Yeah. That's so much time. Yes. Okay. So just do it once. Get it done. Yeah. So [00:12:00] you're saying get to the root of the problem. Could be different- Yeah ... things for different people, and provide support at hopefully the institutional level so that everybody feels like they know which way to go.

Exactly. Because, the thing is we want everyone to win. And by having timely documentation, it's not just for the financial aspect of things, but really for patient care. I've come across people that say that, it's like, what is the plan for this patient in oncology? And the patient has already moved on from the medical oncologist to see the surgeon, and the surgeon has no idea what the medical oncologist is thinking, and then they have to scramble and find- Yeah

The person to talk to. Yeah. Thank you so much. If you could give us one tip walking out the door, what would you tell us all to do? Is it the perfectionism one? Is it figuring out, having the positive perspective? Which one do you recommend number one? I would say number one is actually having the positive and pleasant perspective because that, really changes the day.

And remind yourself the, throughout the day, [00:13:00] that's the attitude you want to carry. I love it. Tell us how people can work with you. Yeah you can find me my company is called Shining With Gratitude MD. I know it doesn't really fit anything, but it's only because I am so grateful for what has happened to me.

And so my website is www.shiningwithgratitudemd.com, and my email is [email protected], and you can find me on LinkedIn, Mary Leung, MD, and Instagram, Dr. Mary Leung. We will make sure all of that gets in the show notes so that people who are listening to this do not have to worry about pulling over, writing it down.

Thank you so much for joining us today. For those of you who haven't heard, I think Mary mentioned it, we do have a book out. We just put out the book, The Physician's Guide to Owning Your Time. Lots of these ideas that Mary talked about are integrated, but also not all about coaching. So if you need somebody about coaching, please feel free to reach out to Mary.

And [00:14:00] thank you all very much. I look forward to talking to you next week. Thank you so much.