Dr. Jonathan Wenk is the Medical Director of the Emergency Department and Director of Operations for Integrated Acute Care at White Oak Medical Center. He is trained in both Internal Medicine and Emergency Medicine and has more than 23 years of experience as an emergency medicine physician, including overseeing the WOMC emergency department for the past three years. He is President-Elect of the WOMC Medical Staff for 2025.

Recently, he and James McKenna sat down to discuss leadership and wellness.

In your opinion, what is the intersection between leadership and wellness? Why does it matter?

A leader needs to identify team members struggling with burnout by being a skilled, careful observer of behaviors such as absenteeism. Frequent check-ins with colleagues are also important. These can be brief or more extensive, depending on circumstances.

I also solicit feedback from other team members. For example, I may ask a nurse, “Do any providers seem burned out or stressed to you?” Nurses and other colleagues can help enormously in identifying ED providers who may be struggling.

Leadership matters because, once you’ve identified these individuals, there are ways to learn what they’re going through and ways to help. Maybe start with: “I notice you’re struggling with your well-being…” then listen to their response, which may or may not be work-related. I’m amazed at some of the situations providers must endure. For example, one provider lost her parents within 3 weeks of one another. She was grieving profoundly without letting anyone know. Another colleague had been through a lawsuit and was suffering through that for an extended period.

Sometimes we must have tough conversations with team members when they’re not doing well and struggling with their workload. This may include asking what we can do to help make things better, offering strategies for coping with a specific situation or even recommending a team member look at opportunities outside of the emergency department.

How do you make your own health and wellbeing a priority?

The first time I had severe burnout, I was working full time in a clinical setting. One of the first people I turned to was my wife. While she was supportive and empathetic, we still had bills to pay.

I then reached out to my director for help. We agreed to dial back my shifts to ⅔ of the current workload for a specific time period. That was a lifesaver for me and I was re-invigorated. I fully acknowledge that everyone is different and this strategy may not work for others.

I’ve also learned what does NOT work. Relocating someone to a new site is a strategy that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, depending on many factors. When it doesn’t work, it may not be immediately obvious. It may just be a short-term distraction if the new site is similar to the former one.

Another myth is that taking a vacation is the answer. While that can help, the boost may be short-lived if the root causes of burnout are not addressed.

When was an occasion when you managed time well? What did that look like?

When I worked out the ⅔ agreement with my director, we agreed to start with a six-month timeframe. During this time, I learned the importance of getting involved in roles outside the clinical setting. Through my participation in various committees, I began learning about leadership and administration.

I also learned I can no longer do 16 shifts per month and worked to engage my brain in other ways. Learning new things invigorates me and is how my career has evolved.

A doctor who’s a great friend of mine loved working 15 shifts per month. He also loved spending time hiking and fishing in upstate New York. He spent 6 weeks per year in the wilderness with no cell phone or computer. Completely disengaging helped him.

For me, it’s hard to completely disengage and I need to do better with this. I’m committed to the job and want to do well. Some of this is learned behavior. My dad is a pathologist and I watched him manage many clinical crises in his lab.

It also helps to have a great work partner. That gives me peace of mind. My vice-chair is critically important. He has my back.

What’s the business case for wellness?

That’s a great question but tough to quantify. When providers burnout, they quit. Then you need to recruit. Before they quit, providers call out frequently. Then there are holes in the schedule and bonus pay is needed to fill tough slots. More complaints ensue, contributing to less collegiality and a loss of productivity. It’s very possible to tally up the cost and put a price tag on wellness. These are the expenses that start to accrue.

On the flipside, allocating funds to wellness initiatives has a positive impact including reduced levels of burnout, less turnover, lower absenteeism, and fewer errors and patient complaints. Budgets are tight these days and we need to be able sell our requests for financial resources by having a good understanding of our metrics.

To wrap up, what advice do you have for colleagues who may be experiencing challenges maintaining work-life balance?

Here are my parting pieces of advice:

• Be honest with yourself. Acknowledge you feel burned out and don’t be afraid to speak up out of fear of letting people down.
• Don’t be a hero and try to tough it out alone. The problem will not get better on its own.
• Don’t be ashamed to ask for help. As providers, we work in a field that requires toughness and resiliency. Yet, there are times we still need help from a supervisor, colleague, friend, coach or loved one.
• Figure out what works best for you, individually, to get through your burnout. Try different things through trial and error.
• Don’t sweat the small stuff. Ask yourself, “In the grand scheme of things, does this really matter?” In most cases, the answer is “no.”
• Know when and how to let go of things.