By Carl Zebrowski
Editor
When Dr. Zach Goldsmith took over as president of the Jewish Federation’s Maimonides Society, he said he wanted to expand the membership of the organization of healthcare professionals.
“It is my personal mission to increase Federation engagement among younger healthcare workers, especially women,” Goldsmith said.
The society’s Brunch and Learn scheduled for 10 a.m. Sunday, March 19, is a step in that direction. Three women healthcare professionals will make presentations that day, on the general topic of “Burnout in Healthcare”: Drs. Chelsea Busch, Lynn Wilson and Kristine Schultz.
“We are lucky to be working together for this lecture, as we each have unique perspectives ranging from acute care medicine to primary care and mental health specialties,” Schultz said.
Busch is a clinical psychologist with a primary focus in pediatrics. She gained experience developing resilience/wellness programs for healthcare workers during her doctorate training at Nemours Children’s Hospital.
“The American Medical Association recently referred to physician burnout as ‘an epidemic in the U.S. healthcare system,’ with a majority of physicians endorsing symptoms of burnout,” Busch said. “So I am hoping this will be a timely presentation.”
Wilson is a geriatrician in the Lehigh Valley Health Network Department of Family Practice. She is program director for the geriatrics fellowship and has served as section chief of geriatrics. Geriatrics has experienced greater burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic than many healthcare fields.
Schultz is an emergency medical physician in the Lehigh Valley Health Network. She has an active role in resident education and focuses especially on ultrasound technology in emergency room evaluation. Emergency medicine has been another area of high burnout during the pandemic.
The presentations will focus on three questions that fall under the general theme: What is burnout and how do you identify it? What can you do about it personally? How can you advocate for organizational change?
Goldsmith expects the subject matter and the presenters to be popular with the intended audience. “I really believe that the efforts of these three doctors and this particular topic will help garner more interest in Maimonides,” he said.
Goldsmith is working to set up a roundtable discussion for women in healthcare in May. Details on that will follow when they’re available.
For information on joining Maimonides, contact Aaron Gorodzinsky, the Federation’s director of campaign and security planning, at aaron@jflv.org or visit the Maimonides web page at jewishlehighvalley.org/maimonides.