Q&A with Patty Sacks & Holly Andersen

Sacks: My husband and I wanted to support Dartmouth College’s Call to Lead campaign and we wanted our gift to benefit the medical school. Speaking with Geisel Dean Duane Compton and Dr. Matt Duncan, an assistant professor of psychiatry and of medical education, we identified student mental health care as a priority need. Dr. Duncan had a vision to provide Geisel students with dedicated counselors who could work around med students’ busy schedules, as well as programming to address stigma reduction and resiliency training. It was very easy to support this.

Andersen: As Dartmouth College graduates who feel grateful for our education, my husband and I also wanted to support the Call to Lead, and Healthy Students = Healthy Physicians resonated with us. We’re in a medical mental health crisis in this country and burnout—defined by extreme emotional exhaustion, high depersonalization or detachment from patients, and a low sense of personal accomplishment—is increasing among physicians of all specialties. And research has shown that unaddressed mental health needs begins for many within one year of medical school. Being a physician is an incredible profession and medical education is an amazing journey so we have to do a better job of supporting doctors-in-training throughout their progression.

Sacks: Dr. Duncan and Dean Compton had a longstanding interest in and commitment to improving medical student mental health. Generally speaking, doctors have this survival instinct and they’re reluctant to feel vulnerable, yet they suffer, just like everyone else—their suicide rate is more than double that of the general population and higher than that of any other profession. This was top of mind for Geisel leadership and they were flexible, nimble, and ready to get this program going without a lot of red tape.

Andersen: Geisel’s small size makes it easy to reach students and explore innovative ideas. Piloting a program like this at Geisel, we can use student feedback—which has been amazing!—and other program data to think about how medical schools across the country can learn from our initiative. We’ve already begun to reach out to other institutions for collaboration, including mine at Weill Cornell. If we can get this right at Geisel and share what we learn and accomplish, the benefits will be felt by physicians, healthcare professionals, and the patients they serve for decades to come.

Sacks: It was eye-opening to have a child go through medical school. Students experience challenges with work-life balance while being exposed to suffering in others that they’ve never seen before—all in a hypercompetitive environment. They were reluctant to talk about these stressors and had little access to flexible resources. It seemed to me that if they can’t take care of their own well-being, how were they going to continue on this arduous path and take care of other people?

Andersen: I’ve been a practicing cardiologist in an academic medical institution for nearly 30 years and prior to that went through a rigorous training. The culture within academic medicine is: suck it up, don’t complain, and put your patients first. We’ve learned that physicians don’t get mental health treatment because of stigma and because of the concern that an appointment won’t fit into their busy schedule. Healthy Students = Healthy Physicians is addressing this. Geisel students now have 24/7 access to mental health counseling, free of charge, and from day one of their medical school experience we’re emphasizing that taking care of their mental health is crucial for their success as a physician.

Sacks: The program could still use more full-time counselors, especially those with expertise in the issues affecting LGBTQIA students and those who are underrepresented in medicine. For our medical students to get effective mental health care they need counselors who look like them and are culturally similar to them, and we are committed to providing that. Ultimately, I’d love to see the program fully endowed, which would benefit our students today and the Geisel students of tomorrow.

Andersen: I want and expect Healthy Students = Healthy Physicians to be on a national platform. We are building the program and perfecting it, we will evaluate it, publish our learnings, and share them with other institutions. Additional philanthropy will help Geisel continue to lead the way in shaping a new generation of physicians better equipped to take care of themselves and of their patients.