OMF grant focuses on targeting burnout within the medical field
Three new physician-led initiatives launched by the Ontario Medical Foundation to address your wellness are inching toward completion.
The projects, made possible by a donation from the medical billing platform Dr.Bill, seek to address burnout experienced by physicians due to increasing health-system failures. The initiatives put a special emphasis on doctors who treat equity-deserving groups.
Meet the three physicians awarded the grant:
Dr. Julie Maggi and Dr. Elli Weisbaum: Dr. Maggi, a psychiatrist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, and Dr. Elli Weisbaum, a faculty member at the University of Toronto, are researching/exploring the impacts of a five-week Applied Mindfulness program being tested on physicians working at Toronto hospitals this year. Recommendations on the most effective techniques will be delivered next spring.
Dr. Julie Maggi, left, and Dr. Elli Weisbaum are researching the impacts of a five-week Applied Mindfulness program.
Mindfulness, Dr. Maggi says, is sometimes misunderstood.
“Some people, especially physicians, are skeptical about mindfulness. They sometimes come back after the first session and say, ‘I think I did it wrong.’ But it's the trying that starts to help. Your mind's going to wander. You're going to lose your attention. And that's totally normal. It's trying and practicing and continuing to practice that in the end will be helpful because it keeps you coming back to the present moment.”
Dr. Weisbaum adds, “What we hear from physicians is that being present allows them to have better interactions with their patients and colleagues, and increases work-life balance, which results in a greater sense of personal wellness.”
Dr. Sanjeev Sockalingam and Dr. Treena Wilkie: Dr. Sockalingam, a psychiatrist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, and Dr. Treena Wilkie, a forensic psychiatrist and chief of forensic services at the centre, are building a framework to evaluate physician wellness initiatives across the province to ensure effective and meaningful opportunities for reducing burnout.
“We all recognize there are high rates of physician burnout and there have been tremendous efforts…to develop programs and interventions to try to address it,” said Dr. Sockalingam. “But we haven’t taken an organizational approach to evaluating their effectiveness. We know that they do not work alone, and so thankfully many organizations are looking at physician wellness through a multi-modal approach.”
Dr. Treena Wilkie is a forensic psychiatrist and chief of forensic services at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
Dr. Noah Ivers: The Women’s College Hospital family physician is leading the Peers for Joy in Work project and says all doctors are vulnerable to burnout because they share a frustration over not always having the resources available to let them be the kind of doctor they want to be.
“If you're a clinician working in that kind of community or disproportionately with those kinds of patients, the likelihood of burnout seems like it might be higher, so we wanted to organize our program for them.” Dr. Ivers said. Read more about Dr. Ivers’ program and how it’s helping physicians.
OMF President Dr. Albert Ng says he’s heard physicians when they say that burnout is one of the most pressing concerns.
“We hope that each of these initiatives will in its own unique way play a role in providing tools to help prevent burnout if it emerges.”
Learn more about the OMF’s initiatives to improve the lives of doctors and all Ontarians.