Speakers
Prof. Gregory HAMMER
USA
Greg Hammer, MD, is a Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine and of Pediatrics in the Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Hammer’s clinical focus is in pediatric cardiac anesthesia and critical care medicine. His research is in developmental pharmacology and immunology. He has published more than 200 scientific articles, over 40 chapters in core pediatric anesthesiology and pharmacology textbooks, and has been a Visiting Professor at over 40 institutions world-wide.
Dr. Hammer has had a long-standing interest in Wellness, including nutrition, physical fitness, meditation, and mindfulness practice. In 2020 he published an award-winning, best-selling book entitled, “GAIN Without Pain: The Happiness Handbook for Health Care Professionals.” He has been a member of the WellMD directive at Stanford and Chair of the Wellness Task Force for the California Society of Anesthesiologists. He is currently writing his 3rd book on Wellness, focused on teenagers. More info is available at greghammermd.com.
Burnout is a syndrome of chronic stress, resulting in mental and physical fatigue; it also includes depersonalization and a lack of the sense of personal accomplishment. Burnout has been on the rise world-wide for over a decade, and its prevalence further increased with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The costs of burnout include a decrement in the quality of care physicians provide, resulting in an increase in medical and surgical errors and patient morbidity and mortality. Associated depression and suicide among physicians is also on the rise as a result of burnout.
The Stanford WellMD program was initiated in 2011 to address what was even then recognized as a growing problem. The WellMD rubric for categorizing the components of burnout as well as potential remedies will be discussed. These include (1) the efficiency of our practice, (2) the culture of our workplace, and (3) personal resilience. We will focus on the latter in this presentation and will introduce a simple, 3-minute practice that can help us become more resilient physicians and boost our sense of professional fulfillment. We will take a deeper dive into this area in the subsequent workshop.
