The Schwartz Center is committed to supporting healthcare professionals with additional resources on caring for their patients, themselves and their teams during challenging times. Please find mental health and wellness resources here.
Mixed feelings are not new territory for clinicians: many of us have learned to care with compassion for our patients, whatever challenges and choices they present us with. However, even the most compassionate clinicians are struggling now with the state of our healthcare system and the demands it places on staff being called to care for very sick people who have declined vaccination for COVID-19. In this webinar, clinical health psychologist Dr. Christine Runyan will explore the opposing internal experiences of anger and compassion that so many clinicians are grappling with today, asking: What is the relationship between these emotions? What should we do when anger enters clinical practice? And what do clinicians need to know about managing the emotions that attend the real and complex challenges of the moment?
Christine Runyan, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, co-founder of Tend Health, and a mindfulness teacher at the UMass Memorial Center for Mindfulness.
Dr. Beth Lown, MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, will discuss the current state of evidence about what makes interventions effective in supporting caregivers’ mental health during pandemics and other causes of mass trauma. We’ll consider a spectrum of facilitators and barriers from intervention characteristics to individual and organizational factors that make a difference, and some examples you can consider for your organization.
Please join Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Beth Lown, MD, for a conversation with Nicholas Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH. Dr. Christakis is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University, Fellow of the National Academy of Medicine, bestselling author, physician, sociologist, public health expert and social network scientist. He is the author of many books including Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live (2020) and Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society (2019). During this session, we will explore how, despite a human history replete with violence and polarization, we cannot escape our social blueprint for goodness. Dr. Christakis will discuss how the evolution of humankind has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning – all fundamental to our collective sense of purpose and compassion.
The COVID-19 pandemic has added an unprecedented layer of stress and trauma to the many challenges that healthcare workers have long faced. As we turn our attention to how organizations and individuals can now move toward recovery, it’s imperative that healthcare leaders, educators, and policymakers take action to cultivate a sustainable, supported healthcare workforce. After all: Caregivers are humans before they are heroes, and when they are suffering, they too need care.
This special panel discussion moderated by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes with Corey and Jennifer Feist of the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation; Jeremy Segall, Chief Wellness Officer of NYC Health + Hospitals; Dean Michelle Williams of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; and Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown explored the ways in which the pandemic has exacerbated a mental-health crisis for our healthcare workforce, and steps we can take to prevent, assess, and address the significant mental and behavioral health consequences of caregiving.
This event is offered in partnership with #FirstRespondersFirst, an initiative of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Thrive Global, and the CAA Foundation, takes a whole human approach to addressing the needs of our frontline workers in order to support their ability to serve on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. #FirstRespondersFirst’s fundraising call to action helps provide essential supplies, protective equipment, accommodations, child care, food, and critical mental health support and resources to this demographically and socially diverse workforce, ranging from minimum-wage hourly workers in home-care settings to social workers, nurses, physicians, and beyond, through its implementing collaborators Americares, Bright Horizons, CORE Response, Direct Relief, Give An Hour, Global Health Corps, Hispanic Federation, IHG Hotels & Resorts, InnerHour, International Rescue Committee, Marriott International, National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), National Black Nurses Association, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Omada Health, Osmosis, Pivot, The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, World Central Kitchen, and You Okay, Doc?. Powered by Thrive Global’s behavior change platform, #FirstRespondersFirst also provides access to Harvard Chan School’s evidence-based content, specifically tailored to this critical workforce, to help improve the physical and mental well-being of healthcare workers.
COVID has upended the ways in which we understand what it means to grieve and to mourn. During this webinar, we invite you to join us in reflecting on our experiences of grief, loss and mourning in the time of COVID, as EOL founder Michael Hebb moderates a conversation with Dr. Rana Awdish, best-selling author and critical-care physician at Henry Ford Hospital; Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison, MFA, LMSW, DMIN, co-founder of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care and a Jungian psychotherapist; and Dr. Candi K. Cann, thanatologist and associate professor of Baylor University.
Grief and loss are a part of the human experience, particularly so in medicine, where we witness both life-altering moments and death on a daily basis. Many of us were socialized to believe we need to grin and bear it, to move on with our practice and our lives without understanding and engaging with how grief and loss affect us as people and practitioners. Amid COVID-19, grief has become particularly pronounced as families are separated from their hospitalized loved ones, we are often engaging with patients through a Zoom screen, and many of our patients are dying, often alone. How might the reading and writing of stories help us to shine a light on the invisible suffering many of us bear, particularly these days? In this session, Sunita Puri, MD, discusses how writers have explored the territory of grief and loss in healing ways, and how those of us working with patients on the front line might do the same. Following the presentation, Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Beth Lown, MD, moderates a brief Q&A.
Neil Greenberg, MD, FRCPsych, Professor of Defense Mental Health, King’s College London, and international expert on trauma risk management and prevention shares what healthcare organizations need to know and do to manage traumatic stress. Dr. Greenberg draws on his more than 23 years of deployment as a psychiatrist and researcher to many hostile environments including Afghanistan and Iraq. Following Dr. Greenberg’s presentation, Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Beth Lown hosts a brief Q&A.
The COVID-19 pandemic presents clinicians with communication challenges most have never faced before. Things like conducting goals-of-care conversations over Zoom or walking a family member through a last goodbye over the phone are happening daily. In this webinar, Anthony Back, MD, talks about clinical wisdom gained in Seattle and New York City, and the COVID-Ready Communication Playbook now available at vitaltalk.org.
Patricia Watson, PhD, and Richard Westphal, PhD, RN, discuss specific strategies healthcare professionals can use to address the five essential human needs that support recovery from adversity and stress for patients and families. They also explain how to use the Stress First Aid framework to assess for stress injury, discuss patient needs and make referrals to other supports.