Stanford Medicine hired Dr. Tait Shanafelt as chief wellness officer last year, not so much for the well-being of the patients — but of the physicians.

An oncologist and hematologist by training, Shanafelt, 46, has become a national leader in the movement to end physician “burnout” — the cumulative effect of years of stress that can compromise patient care and cause doctors to leave medicine. After 12 years at the Mayo Clinic, Shanafelt now heads up Stanford’s WellMD Center, dedicated to physician health. He also serves as an associate dean of the Stanford University medical school.

Shanafelt’s goal is to address the systemic problems in medicine — long hours, a culture of blame, endless record-keeping — and find solutions that go far beyond yoga classes or free ice cream for doctors.

It’s a high-stakes effort, one joined by other physicians and researchers nationwide: Roughly 300 to 400 doctors die by suicide each year, and physicians rank among the occupations with the highest risk of death by suicide. A 2017 National Academy of Medicine paper, co-authored by Shanafelt, found that more than half of U.S. physicians experienced “substantial symptoms” of job burnout.

To read more of Barbara Feder Ostrov's article, please click here.