Recently, ASA approved a formal standing Committee on Physician Well-Being (COPWB) to address the growing needs of the membership and, ultimately, the patients we serve. For years there existed within ASA a community of anesthesiologists committed to physician well-being, many of whom now continue that work through the efforts of the COPWB.
Shortly after the COPWB first convened, the COVID-19 pandemic closed in around us. Priorities shifted! However, the pandemic quickly exposed cracks and vulnerabilities within our health care system while bringing aspects of the challenges we face as health care providers to newspaper front pages. Clinician well-being could no longer be brushed aside as an abstract or superfluous concept; it was an imperative to the demands now placed on a health care system fighting the first global health care crisis of our lives. Workers spoke out and leaders listened. At this unique moment, we have an opportunity to engage...
