By Richard Gunderman, MD, PhD
IU School of Medicine 
The keynote speaker for the ISMA’s daylong 2025 Physician Wellness Symposium on September 26 is Corey Martin, MD, a Yale-trained family physician from Minnesota who focuses on improving the mental and physical health of physicians. His session, “From Surviving to Thriving: The Science of Connection, Gratitude, and Mindset,” will highlight the need for physicians to take care of themselves before we take care of patients.

Martin describes his own career arc as beginning with 5 years of full-scope family practice, before he began to realize that he had burned out. “I was not sure I would stay in medicine,” he says, “but a half-time position as chief medical officer opened up, and I got the job.” His hospital’s CEO, “the best boss I’ll ever have,” encouraged him to draw on his own burnout experience, developing programs that produced high physician retention.

A sequence of events contributed to Martin’s burnout. First, a colleague in obstetrics who had delivered two of his children was killed in a motorcycle accident, leaving a wife and four children. Three months later, he found out that a colleague in pediatrics had taken his own life.  He remembers walking into the procedure suite the next day and being told by a nurse, “I am so glad you are here.  I heard a physician had died, and I was afraid it was you.” 

This served as a wake-up call for Martin, who along with his CEO realized that something needed to be done to help distressed physicians.  He learned to think of burnout as a three-legged stool: the first leg is organizational inefficiency, such as prior authorization and overflowing inbox messages; the second is cultural, such as feeling valued; and the third is personal, the one part we have complete control over.

Personal well-being may not always be the most important, but we can do something about it. Says Martin, “We can, for example, create time to do what we know is good for us. Even just a 30-second hack, such as having people pull out their cell phone and send a brief note of thanks or appreciation, can make a huge difference.” A Harvard study showed that people who did this daily for three weeks reaped well-being benefits for over a year.

Martin leads retreats around the country. He finds that many of his participants are quite burned out and thinking about changing jobs or retiring.  But once they develop some good habits around personal well-being, they realize that they have lots of control over their careers and their lives, and they get excited about opportunities they have to do worthwhile things, including making a difference for others.

Another key step for Martin is to recognize sufficiency.  Instead of striving to do everything perfectly all the time, physicians need to remind ourselves and each other that many tasks are best done merely well enough. For example, a chart note that is good enough is just that – good enough.  Unless we set boundaries that relieve us of the burden of being perfect in every aspect of work and life, we are unlikely to thrive.

Like his 30-second hacks, Martin devotes considerable attention to things that can be achieved in a week, so that participants feel a difference very early on in terms of becoming healthier, living longer, and enjoying work and life more.  Many of us, he says, need to look in the mirror and recognize the old, beaten-down person staring back at us so that we can see the light of day again.

A key part of Martin’s personal mission is to go into organizations and educate their leaders and medical staffs on the importance of caring for physicians as persons. When we see a colleague who is already having a horrible day at 7:30 am, we need to reach out to them, perhaps suggesting that we grab lunch or a beer after work. Through his speaking and workshops, Martin is promoting this ethos throughout healthcare. The 2025 ISMA Physician Wellness Symposium is accredited for 6.0 AMA PRA Category 1 credits, and the registration fee includes both lunch and a reception. Dr. Martin’s interactive session will take place between 10:00 am and noon. For more information and to register for the event, which will take place at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Noblesville, visit www.ismanet.org/PhysicianWellnessSymposium.