The American Medical Association has designated South Georgia Medical Center for its Joy in Medicine Recognition Program. This program seeks to improve physician satisfaction and engagement while reducing rates of burnout.
Physician burnout rates have reached an all-time high following the COVID-19 pandemic according to the AMA. Coupled with the stress of caring for patients during a pandemic and suffering from work overload the strain healthcare workers experience at times can be immense.
The Joy in Medicine Health System Recognition Program was created in order to help evaluate health systems and their efforts to combat physician burnout rates, and lead to a more balanced life. Candidates for the program were evaluated according to evidence of their interventions deployed to improve providers quality of life and a healthy working environment.
Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brian Dawson stated, “Physician well-being is something we take extremely seriously within our health system. We want to ensure the people who take care of people are well taken care of. We have implemented a Physician Wellness Committee whose focus is to ultimately improve our provider’s quality of life and as a result the quality of patient care provided at SGMC.”
Forty-four health care organizations nationwide were recognized, and SGMC was the only organization identified in the region.
SGMC has a medical staff of more than 400 providers and a Physician Network of more than 50 physicians who provide care in the specialties of primary care, internal medicine, cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery, critical care medicine, stroke, trauma, vascular surgery, oncology, gastroenterology, neurosurgery, neurology, obstetrics and gynecology, pulmonology, infectious disease, occupational medicine, general surgery, colorectal surgery, endocrine surgery, and wound care.
The hospital continues to welcome new physicians through recruitment and its newly formed Graduate Medical Education program. The Graduate Medical Education program has already begun accepting applications and looks forward to residents starting in July of 2022.