Building the peer support physicians need

Sound Mind: conversations about physician wellness and medical culture

“In medicine we’ve been held to really unreasonable expectations of what it means to be a physician. Even the idea of ‘health care heroes’ during the pandemic, which came from wanting to honour providers, has actually had the reverse consequence – making health care providers feel they need to be superheroes.”– Dr. Jo Shapiro

Dr. Jo Shapiro, surgeon, Harvard professor and founder of the US-based Center for Professionalism and Peer Support, is internationally recognized for her work in physician peer support.

The program she helped create at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital pioneered the “reach in” approach, where trained peer supporters seek out medical professionals immediately after a serious medical error or other crisis events.

In this episode, she talks with Dr. Caroline Gérin-Lajoie about the “reach in” approach, the “must-haves” for successful peer support programs and how she sees the COVID-19 pandemic affecting her colleagues and physician health programs in the long term.

Want to learn more about physician wellness? Visit the CMA Physician Wellness Hubfor curated, clinically-based tools, resources, and research on all the topics covered in this podcast.