"Hospitals Address Widespread Doctor Burnout" - Lucette Lagnado

Doctors who feel stressed or burned out are getting some urgent care. To address what experts view as a national epidemic of physician discontent, hospitals are expanding their c-suites with the new position of chief wellness officer. In recent years hospitals have tried a variety of wellness programs, but there is a sense this approach didn’t treat the causes of physician angst and alienation. Jonathan Ripp, MD, senior associate dean of well-being and resilience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and chief wellness officer for the Mount Sinai Health System, said that stress and burnout affect senior physicians as well as resident and medical students. One priority is reducing clerical duties. A leading cause of physician distress is electronic record-keeping, which requires doctors to do clerical and billing work, and cuts into time with patients. It has also increased “Pajama Time,” the hours doctors devote at home to electronic charting that wasn’t finished during the day, Dr. Ripp says. One solution is having doctors dictate notes directly into electronic records. He envisions a team approach where doctors focus on clinical care and leave some tasks to others. By shaving administrative minutes here and there, Dr. Ripp aims to reduce nightly electronic work by an hour.

- Jonathan A. Ripp, MD, Senior Associate Dean, Well-Being and Resilience, Chief Wellness Officer, Associate Dean, Trainee Well-Being in Graduate Medical Education, Associate Professor, Medicine, General Internal Medicine, Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

- Antonia S. New, MD, Professor, Psychiatry, Residency Training Director, Vice Chair, Education, Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

- Lauren Peccoralo, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor, Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

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