Healthcare organizations understand the value of supporting the emotional and psychological well-being of their physicians—reducing burnout, supporting retention and recruitment and making sure everyone is working to their full potential.
Yet for well-being to be an integral part of the organization, it’s not enough for struggling physicians to get help after the fact in response to a crisis. Well-being support needs to be proactive, following the model of preventive care.
This is the message Sarah Webber, MD sends in a wide-ranging article Physician Well-Being: Why a Proactive Approach is Essential. The pediatrician and peer coach for physicians outlines her vision of a healthcare organization that makes care for the well-being of its workers—as well as its patients—a priority at every level, from the clinical setting to the C-suite.
“The most basic, big-picture way for an organization to be proactive in the sense I mean,” she writes, “is to create a work culture of well-being.” Dr. Webber’s prescription for creating such a work culture involves fostering a wellness-centered leadership approach as well as creating effective programs. That leadership style recognizes the humanity of physicians, acknowledges every physician’s well-being needs are different, installs concern for well-being in every management decision and does what it can to remove obstacles in the way of every physician doing what they do best—caring for patients.
It's a bold vision for change in medicine. Read it here.
