UVA Physicians Group

So as you mentioned, Joe, I was the CEO of the University of Virginia Physicians Group, and interestingly, I got to the University of Virginia Physicians Group in 2006 as the general counsel.

And over the time I was at UVA Physicians Group, I heard this increasing drumbeat from our clinicians about how difficult their day-to-day practice had become, to the point that in 2016 when I became the CEO and I went back to all of our 21 clinical department chairs and I said, "What else can we be doing as your medical group to help you out on a day-to-day basis?" To a person, each one of our 21 clinical chairs started to talk about a concept that frankly I hadn't heard before 2016, which was this increasing conversation about burnout.

And really what they were talking about, without even using the word burnout, is just how challenging the day-to-day environment had become.

They pointed to the advent of the electronic medical record as something that was really benefiting patients, but was standing between their clinicians and their patients a- and frankly their families, spending hours and hours a day before, during, and after work documenting and just buried in pajama time.

I just recently read an article, it's actually on my desk here, about how high the rate of burnout is for our leaders.

And I wanna recognize that just as our clinicians are burned out, our leaders are burnt out.

I was burnt out as the CEO of the UVA Physicians Group, for sure, as I look back on it.

It's a really hard job, and it is hard when you are in any position where you're burnt out to think about long-term solutions.