Physician Wellness

Working in health care is difficult. Even before COVID-19, physician burnout and chronic stress were challenges that were only exacerbated by the pandemic. Physician wellness encompasses personal, physical, and mental wellbeing, and affects not only health care providers, but the patients they treat.

Addressing burnout can lead to healthier providers, less provider turnover, lower costs, and better patient outcomes. The Iowa Medical Society strives to support health care providers through the following programs and resources:

Burnout Awareness & Resiliency

IMS Burnout Awareness and Resiliency programming is first line option in addressing burnout among healthcare professionals. This programming defines the burnout elephant in the room and gives the tools to prevent burnout by recognizing the warning signs and identifying changes to mitigate burnout and explore simple evidence-based solutions once burnout has taken hold.

Participants discuss how to lead without leading to burnout and how to build a resilient organization, rediscovering the joy of practicing medicine and supporting providers in getting back to their primary purpose: caring for patients.

Burnout Awareness and Resiliency programming is applicable across disciplines, appropriate for all healthcare team members and can be a meaningful practice resource for physicians and their clinical teams.

Recognize. Recover. Rebuild.

Recognize. Recover. Rebuild. is physician-physician, peer-based programing recognizing the unique and exacerbating impact of the pandemic on physician wellness. This program features Dr. Charles Keller, MD, a physician leader with expertise spanning the C-suite through boots-on-the ground critical care during the pandemic, and a highly personal experience with burnout and recovery.

Recognize. Recover. Rebuild. programming offers the opportunity to break from didactic and move to relationship-based learning, translating principles and techniques into real-life, true-to-practice application and experiences. Through this programming participants are able to break down the burnout wall, appreciate the power of the person in the professional, and gain tested-and-true tools and techniques to build resilience and fight burnout – for themselves and others.

This programming offers the ability to bridge the individual towards system-based approaches through access to individualized Maslach Burnout Inventory Survey for Medical Professionals and the Areas of Worklife Survey group reports.

The Iowa Medical Society hosts Recognize. Recover. Rebuild. events regionally in partnership with local health systems and county medical society partners.

Crucial Conversations

Crucial Conversations teaches skills for creating alignment and agreement by fostering open dialogue around high-stakes, emotional, or risky topics—at all levels of your organization. By learning how to speak and be heard (and encouraging others to do the same), you’ll uncover the best ideas, make the highest-quality decisions, and then act on your decisions with unity and commitment. Crucial Conversations equips participants to address first-line responses and become agents for change.

Crucial Conversations provides the skills that cross boundaries in team building, performance management, conflict resolution, problem solving, and speaking up as a champion. These skills not only make you a better professional personally but also form the foundation for creating high-performing, high buy-in team relationships and the systems and environments that foster them.

Next Crucial Conversations Event: May 10, 2024

Upcoming IMS Wellness Events

Additional Physician Wellness Resources

Self Assessment Tool

Webinar Archive

Centers for Disease Control (CDC)

National Institute of Health

The Physicians Foundation

American College of Physicians

American Medical Association

Iowa Psychiatric Physicians Society