Physicians Anonymous is a unique platform for doctors to access confidential and anonymous and professional peer support from other physicians who have walked the wards, worn the scrubs, delved the body cavities/psyches, may have burned out and recovered, and who are now thriving.
By sharing our experience, strength, and hope, our intention is to reduce physician burnout and physician suicide, compassion fatigue, moral injury, mental illness, and substance abuse — and related trauma for our spouses/significant others, parents, children, and patients.
The vision of Physicians Anonymous is to prevent and mitigate physician burnout and suicide across the US and globally, using anonymous peer-support groups and evidence-based strategies for doctors and institutions.
Our mission is to halve the physician burnout rate and suicide within 10 years.
Here we summarize our work in 2023 which was delivered by our amazing volunteers and funded by the co-founders.
We have grown from 1 to 3 totally FREE physician-only peer support groups (1 group is pan-Pacific!). The groups are currently:
Our seven wonderful volunteer facilitators have given a total of >600 facilitator hours, in >80 meetings, supporting >60 individual attendees from 9 countries (~90% US). Many attendees join us regularly. As they gain confidence they start to support newcomers.
It’s a beautiful thing to be part of. As one of our members told us (and we share this quote with their permission):
...I did want to also let you know the importance of your work. This ... (amongst other things) literally saved my life AND allowed me to avoid inpatient admission." - Anonymous Physician
At Physicians Anonymous, we believe in prevention, early intervention, and high-quality peer support from MD Coaches who really understand what it is like to be a doctor.
Our Coaches have walked the corridors. They have worn the scrubs. They have overcome the challenges of medicine – and thrived.
Our experience with hundreds of physicians has taught us that cultivating safe doctor-only spaces that are unlinked to the employer or training organization allows for genuine and free expression of the issues.
To reach more medical students and physicians, we need to scale. To do that we need to reach where we work: hospitals, clinics, facilities, and post-graduate training organizations. We believe in prevention and early intervention, and we trust the evidence-base, and we see in practice, that group coaching interventions reduce multiple burnout metrics and improve many well-being measures.
Based on science, we’ve developed a group-coaching program called the Burnout Vaccine, which is now available to all of these organizations in virtual or on-site delivery.
In brief, the Burnout Vaccine offers a safe, physician-led, transformative program for physicians at all stages:
By being a 3rd party and fiercely anonymous, our colleagues know that their truth will be safe with us. Engagement is genuine at the human level.
Interested? Connect with us here.
Scientific research shows strong evidence that both coaching and mentoring support well-being, change management, and career optimization among physicians and other healthcare professionals.
Our Coaches are physicians or select non-physicians who are Certified Coaches or Mental Health Professionals. Our Mentors are physicians with clinical, teaching, business, or other relevant mentoring experience through their careers, but no formal coaching certification.
Some of our Coaches and Mentors use pseudonyms to protect their identity while offering highly specialized support based on their own life experiences.
We’ve grown our group of values-aligned and approved coaches and mentors to 18 wonderful and highly skilled people.
Excitingly, we are ranked first on Google for cool terms like “physician burnout support” and on page one for “physician support organization”:
Our meetings now come with CME accreditation thanks to our friends at CMEfy.com
We have also agreed two further partnerships, with FitMedik (who offer digital copilots for hospitals tackling physician burnout) and the Clinician Burnout Foundation (who offer burnout-beating & wellbeing-restoring tech & service).
Finally, we formed as a non-profit organization (October 2023). This will enable us to apply for grant and other funding to actually pay our skilled group facilitators and enable our champions to speak at conferences and grand rounds, etc.
We are always looking for further values-aligned people and groups to help and collaborate on our mission.
Our seven wonderful volunteer facilitators have given a total of >600 facilitator hours, in >80 meetings, supporting >60 individual attendees from 9 countries (~90% US). Many attendees join us regularly. As they gain confidence they start to support newcomers.
Let’s say there are 900,000 US physicians. And average burnout is at 50% (from the 2023 Medscape Burnout Report). That gives us 450,000 burned out physicians.
We know that around only 13% of burned-out and depressed physicians are getting professional assistance, while 47% said they weren’t getting help, but they would consider it (Medscape again).
That leaves >390,000 burned-out physicians without any help (half of whom were open to getting support). And that’s in the US alone. Globally, the numbers must be staggering.
We’ve written at length about why physicians don’t seek help. We’ve also been unafraid to discuss the shocking stories of physician suicide.
So HOW do we reach the suffering physician? How do we let our colleagues know that there is a safe place where they can be human first, healer second? Where they will not be judged, but they will be heard and loved. Where we can laugh and cry together bonded by the commonality of being wounded healers.
Given the scale of the challenge, we are not daunted. We are more committed than ever to our mission. At every meeting we hear horror stories of how our medical system injures the healers. We have to reach them and advocate for system change at scale. We cannot do this alone, so collaborative action is essential.
In 2024 we plan to shift the dial positively on physician well-being and suicide:
1. Set up private Facebook PA Facebook group – for more outreach channels
2. Update website: more interactive, safe space discussion groups, resources to set up own zoom groups and become a PA champion, etc.
3. Build personal contacts and trust with hospitals: offer to speak at grand rounds, hospital liaison role
4. Start a self-supporting and growing network of PA “Champions” nationwide who are prepared to “speak out about burnout”
5. Enhance our marketing (if funding is available)
6. Seek funding as a not-for-profit and become financially sustainable in order to reward our volunteers
7. Create more partnerships with values-aligned groups and leverage existing partnerships
8. Offer the Burnout Vaccine at more locations
9. Create more support groups in more time zones/days (organically)
9. What would you do? Let us know in the comments or socials!
