Clinician Wellness
How do we support our physicians being able to care for their patients?
VMS is committed to supporting a community of fully thriving and engaged clinicians across Vermont.
For the Individual - Find your passion and peer group
- Physician Executive Leadership Institute Foundational Course
- Peer networking
- Host a regional gathering
- Schedule a workshop or attend a regional facilitated meeting by Lumunos Well Being
- Executive Coaching
- Start a Finding Meaning in Medicine group
- Seek help if needed: VT Mental Health Crisis Lines
- Vermont Practitioner Health Program
- Suicide Prevention Resources
- Your Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
For the Organization
Remove Intrusive Mental Health Questions from Licensure and Credentialing Applications
Seven steps to prevent burnout in your practice
- Establish wellness as a quality indicator for your practice
- Start a wellness committee and/or choose a wellness champion
- Distribute an annual wellness survey
- Meet regularly with leaders and/or staff to discuss data and interventions to promote wellness
- Initiate selected interventions, such as workflow redesign; better communication between practitioners in your practice and quality improvement projects targeted to address clinician concerns
- Repeat the survey within the year to re-evaluate wellness
- Seek answers within the data, refine the interventions and continue to make improvements
From: American Medical Association, STEPS Forward Module, Physician Burnout: Improve Physician Satisfaction and Patient Outcomes.
See the module for more information on each of these steps as well as additional AMA STEPS Forward modules on Professional Well-Being and Organizational Culture. Subscribe to the AMA’s weekly STEPS Forward email, offering a collection of interactive educational content designed to help put the joy back into medicine: subscribe here.
Ask your health system to commit to promoting physician well-being
For the Health Care System
- Join VMS’ advocacy efforts to reduce administrative burden: align payment with clinician time and patient outcomes; streamline quality measures; reduce prior authorization
Additional Resources
- Addressing Health Worker Burnout: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on Building a Thriving Health Workforce (May 2022)
- AMA presentation at 2019 VMS Wellness Summit
- 2019 VMS Webinar by Robert McLellan, MD
- National Academy of Medicine Clinician Resilience and Well-Being Resources (includes background data, instruments to assess wellbeing, research, and toolkits)
- AMA Steps Forward Modules: Professional Well-Being
- Mayo Clinic Program on Physician Well-being
- Stanford Medicine WellMD Center
- On Demand Webinar In Recognition of National Physician Suicide Awareness Day In recognition of National Physician Suicide Awareness Day, which occured September 17, 2021, the Federation of State Physician Health Programs, in collaboration with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, is offering this on-demand complimentary 2-hour program, “Physician Suicide Prevention: Listening to the Voices of Experience.”