Physician burnout and preparing healthcare providers were topics at a Reuters Total Health 2024 fireside chat with Adtalem President and CEO Steve Beard and Sinai Health CEO Dr. Ngozi Ezike.
What initiatives have you seen in managing healthcare provider burnout? Are there technology solutions?
Answering an audience question, both leaders addressed a critical topic impacting the healthcare workforce—burnout—and how exploring new technology could provide a solution.
“Burnout is real, and it’s happening across all fields,” Dr. Ezike said. “We’re constantly trying to find ways to address those individual needs, but we’re also exploring how technology can aid those caring for the people we’re looking to lift up.”
Beard continued:
“The quality of life for clinicians is an important issue for us, and we try to stay close to innovations that are designed to make the administrative work associated with care lighter. We just announced a partnership with Hippocratic AI to develop curriculum around some of the innovations that they will bring into the care environment in the hopes that our students are comfortable with those should they reach mass usage in the clinical environment.”
Read Hippocratic AI and Adtalem Forms Innovative Partnership to Advance Healthcare Education.
Adtalem and Sinai’s Partnership
Dr. Ezike said of the partnership between Sinai and Adtalem.
“How are you preparing them for the work they are going to see?”
Beard answered:
“One of the ways we achieve this is through the partnerships we have with organizations like Sinai. Unlike many traditional medical schools, we’re not part of an academic medical center and don’t have our own teaching hospital. So, our clinical rotations are made possible through partnerships we form with systems like yours.
“I’ve had the opportunity to visit some of these sites where our students train and speak with administrators and students,” he continued. “The diversity of experiences our students gain, compared to what they might encounter at a traditional academic medical center, really helps prepare them to be ‘day one ready’ for the environments, patients, and circumstances they will face when they begin their practice.
“We also focus heavily on the social determinants of health across all our institutions. Our two medical schools—Ross University School of Medicine and American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine—also produce more Black physicians than any other institution in the country.”
Dr. Ezike added: “It’s important to have people who are coming into this work for the right reason. It's really about serving. Our hospitals are on the south and west sides of Chicago where we have high rates of diabetes and mortality from cancer, and low rates of employment and education. Those factors—the quality of schools, opportunities for employment—make what’s going to determine your health outcomes.”
She continued: “We want clinicians who understand how that interplays and understand that they can make a difference not just by the prescribing medicines and performing surgeries, but what else do you have to be looking at that’s in the community that’s going to make a difference?”
Students at Adtalem’s medical schools do their clinical sciences curriculum at partner hospitals. Explore where RUSM and AUC students complete rotations.
More From Beard on Adtalem as a Healthcare Partner
“One of the challenges we’re seeing is the growing workforce shortage. Retention of workforce talent is also an important topic that we're hearing more about," Beard said.
“Our partners are talking to us about how we can help them create sticky relationships with their workforce, given the expense associated with turnover. We’re also hearing more about health equity and the social determinants of health—how employers can create workforces that are not just compassionate but culturally competent in delivering care.
“One advantage we bring to that conversation is the nature of the students we serve. We don’t position our institutions with a value proposition rooted in prestige or high selectivity; it’s really an access mission. We are here to provide opportunities to students who may not otherwise have them.
“These students are often underrepresented in healthcare—many are first-generation college students or the children of immigrants. They come to their studies with a strong sense of mission, and that mission shapes how they think about their practice.”
For more information, email the Adtalem Global Communications Team: adtalemmedia@adtalem.com.
