An AMA Viewpoints post by AMA Immediate-Past President Steven J. Stack, MD, and American Veterinary Medical Association President Joe Kinnarney, DVM
It’s been said that one person can’t change the world. Still, one person can make a difference.
Each of us, physicians and veterinarians alike, needs to be that one person when it comes to wellness. Many of our colleagues are struggling with wellness issues and they need our help. We need to be compassionate listeners, not judgmental or cynical or proud. We need to help lift the stigma too often associated with wellness struggles, and we need to be there for our colleagues when they face those struggles. It starts with us—and it starts now.
Compassion fatigue, burnout, depression and anxiety: These words have become all too common in the vocabulary of physicians and veterinarians alike. Our doctors are at risk, and we can no longer look the other way. For the first time, the leadership of the AMA and the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) are working together to bring more awareness to the important issue of wellness among health care professionals.
This joint column is a reflection of our early efforts. Both organizations have devoted time, energy and resources to addressing the mental health crisis in our respective professions. But, we must all begin to work more closely together—to share resources, passion and commitment—to break down the stigma and lead our colleagues on a brighter path to well-being. We can save lives.
Efforts to take action, build resources
The AMA has made physicians’ wellness and ability to thrive a top priority. In fact, one of our three strategic focus areas is Professional Satisfaction and Practice Sustainability. As part of this initiative, we have created our STEPS Forward™ collection of practice improvement strategies. These are online modules, which offer proven solutions by physicians for physicians.
Three modules are specifically focused on physician wellness: One gives steps for preventing burnout, another outlines solutions for enhancing joy in practice and mitigating stress, and a third focuses on ways to promote the well-being of physicians in training.
Other modules provide ways to improve elements of the practice environment that can be risk factors for burnout, such as improving work flow through team documentation, expanded rooming and discharge protocols, pre-visit planning and synchronized prescription renewal.
And we’re also working to prepare the next generation of physicians to be more fully equipped to thrive in the evolving health care landscape and to fully embrace a lifelong commitment to wellness—both for them and their colleagues.
Wellness among physicians in training is an increasing focus for medical schools that are members of the AMA’s Accelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium. In fact, the medical community is coming together to address this issue from every part of the professional continuum, from training through retirement.
As an association, the AVMA has recommitted itself to addressing issues related to wellness. Our Future Leaders program, which provides an opportunity for AVMA members who have been out of veterinary school for 15 years or less to take the next step in leadership and service to our profession, has focused on wellness for three years running.
Program participants have helped develop continuing education programming at our annual convention and have developed a more-comprehensive wellness webpage for veterinarians that now adds a validated self-assessment tool to our already extensive array of resources. This year’s class has developed a wellness plan for veterinary practices.
In 2016, the AVMA hosted a Veterinary Wellness Roundtable that brought together representatives from across the profession to discuss the mental health crisis and what we can all do to address it. At the AVMA Convention in August, Dr. Dan Siegel spoke to thousands of attendees about the human mind and how we can use it to create strategies for increasing mental health.
It is our hope the AVMA can serve as a trusted convener of the many groups that have an interest in veterinarians’ wellness and can help ensure the development and success of programs that will help all those we call colleagues and friends. We invite you to join us by bringing your perspective and helping build strength and momentum toward addressing these issues.
What’s needed now
From our students to our seasoned professionals, we need to create, strengthen and enhance programs and resources that lift the veil of silence and stigma so that we can begin attending to our own well-being as healthcare professionals.
We need to contribute energy and resolve to help our colleagues, both through the actions of our associations and as individuals. This problem has existed for many, many years, and the conversation has only recently heated up. We will not let this go like others have in the past. We want to turn the heat up even more. The conversation around this issue has started and we will keep it going.
We encourage you to help start the change in your profession. Have open conversations about mental health, and work to break down the stigma. Although our respective professions have slightly different risk factors for mental health issues and wellness problems, we can work together because these are ultimately human problems, and are not specific to what type of medicine we practice or what species we treat.
We challenge you to support each other. We are all in this together; no one should feel as though he or she is alone or deserves to be stigmatized, labeled, or rejected. Change can indeed start with one person, and that person resides in each of us.
