2024 Lightning Talk: Fostering Physician Well-being at Vancouver Acute/Community, Dr Ka Wai Cheung, MSA President, Vancouver Physician Staff Association
As an update to the work at Vancouver Acute/Community on supporting physician wellness in the Emergency Department, Dr Ka Wai Cheung, now MSA President, reflects on the wellness journey at VCH facilities over the past several years.
With the support of Facility Engagement and other joint funding, each step has built upon the previous one to shift the workplace culture over time.
Establishing foundations
- Between 2017 and 2024, several quality improvement projects have supported increased efficiency and ease of daily clinical work to remove barriers to physician well-being.
- Starting in 2017, outreach and member engagement initiatives were organized, including national and international speakers on wellness.
- In 2018, a Community-building and Wellness Task Group was developed to organize low-barrier social events to welcome new physicians, facilitate networking, and foster relationships outside the work environment between physician leaders and senior medical leaders over a shared meal.
- In 2019, a medical staff lounge was established at Vancouver General Hospital as a hub for engagement and wellness.
Elevating wellness as a collaborative MSA-health authority priority
- Dr Steven Swenson’s talk ‘Joy in Work’ spurred the group to move to the next level, and advocate for broader system change to address the root causes of burnout.
- This talk also led to the formation of a collaborative task group with health authority leadership called the Vancouver Acute Vancouver Community Physician Wellness Steering Committee, funded collaboratively by Facility Engagement and Health System Redesign.
Seeking medical staff experiences and grassroots solutions
- In a subsequent MSA wellness survey, more than 500 of the 2000 members responded with crucial insights: 50 per cent indicated burnout and 75 per cent scored low on professional fulfillment.
- This feedback paved the way for many targeted interventions, including identifying wellness champions from various departments and divisions to work on wellness challenges and approaches within their own groups.
- In 2024, a second wellness survey will be deployed across all Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) medical staff associations in collaboration with VCH to inform next steps.
Supporting members
- Evidence-based Commensality Groups have been organized to support members.
- The Kudos Project has been implemented to recognize and appreciate staff.
Wellness leadership
- A Regional Medical Director position for wellness has been established to operationalize physician wellness as a priority focus for the MSA and health authority and to continue building the work forward.
“Some of our lessons learned includes that change takes time, and sometimes you have to start small and slow to go big and going big involves building relationships with our key stakeholders and not giving up when things move slowly. Every step in the right direction is a step in the right direction.” – Dr Ka Wai Cheung
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