Series Description

Creating a Culture of Well-Being at an Academic Health Center

Reports from various sources indicate that chronic stress and burnout is prevalent in the health professions, affecting over half of primary care practitioners and even more in several specialties. This trend may begin earlier with the observed decline in empathy during medical student and residency training and the alarming rates of burnout in medical and other students in the health professions. 

As educators, administrators and academic health leaders grapple with developing interventions to address these issues, evidence is emerging that programs aimed at fostering resilience and stress reduction such as mindfulness, reflective capacity and appreciate inquiry, also lead to increased empathy and improved well being. Furthermore, the AAMC, ACGME and other national organizations are working to improve the learning environment and facilitate the creation of a culture of well-being at academic health centers. 

The IAMSE 2017 Winter Web Seminar Series has an impressive panel of leaders who will share their expertise on trainee stress and burnout and curricular interventions that have been shown to address these issues. The series is designed to help faculty, course directors and administrators understand the issues and hear about successful approaches and innovations to improve the health and well-being of students, residents and faculty. We hope that this series will bring these serious issues to your awareness and provide you with possible solutions and ideas on how to move forward at your institution.

Webinar Description

This session will briefly review data on physician burnout and dissatisfaction before considering current knowledge of the contributors to and consequences of physician burnout and distress. We will then discuss evidence in support of both individual-focused and organizational solutions, and how these may be aligned with the known drivers of burnout and distress to optimize benefits.

Speaker

Colin West, MD, PhD, Mayo Clinic

Dr. West's research focuses primarily on physician well-being, evidence-based medicine and biostatistics, and medical education. Each of Dr. West's projects involves collaboration with people and groups both within and outside Mayo Clinic, including Jeff A. Sloan, Ph.D., in the Division of Biomedical Statistics and Informatics and members of leadership in the American College of Physicians. The work of Dr. West and his team has been published in multiple top-tier journals, including the Journal of the American Medicine Association, Annals of Internal Medicine and Archives of Internal Medicine.

Full biography and publications.