Emergency Department or Battleground? Voices of Emergency Physicians Speaking Out About Workplace Violence Against Staff (Wellness Committee-Sponsored)
Workplace violence in the emergency department is disturbingly common, with 91% of emergency physicians reporting threats or attacks in the past year, and 71% noting an increase in violence. Despite its prevalence, such incidents remain vastly underreported due to institutional barriers, stigma, and personal reluctance. This session invites emergency medicine providers to hear real, rarely-shared stories from their peers, exploring the emotional and physical toll workplace violence takes on our profession. Participants will discuss the barriers to reporting, explore solutions for fostering a safer work environment, and work together to address the systemic changes needed to protect staff.
Learning Objectives:
- Define workplace violence in the Emergency Department, recognizing its prevalence, forms, and impact on healthcare professionals.
- Identify key barriers to reporting workplace violence, including institutional, cultural, and personal factors that contribute to underreporting.
- Describe the emotional and psychological effects of workplace violence through real stories shared by emergency medicine professionals.
- Discuss actionable solutions to mitigate workplace violence, improve reporting, and enhance support systems for healthcare workers in the ED.
Presenters:
- Suzanne (Suzi) Bentley, MD, MPH
- Vytas P. Karalius, MD, MPH, MA
- Amanda J. Deutsch, MD
- Al'ai Alvarez, MD (he/him/his)
- Marla C. Doehring, MD
- Laura G. Iavicoli, MD, MBA
- Vytas P. Karalius, MD, MPH, MA
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-bentley-md-mph.jpg?sfvrsn=eaffdafb_4 "Suzanne (Suzi) Bentley, MD, MPH")
Suzanne (Suzi) Bentley, MD, MPH
Chief Wellness Officer
NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst
Suzanne (Suzi) Bentley, MD, MPH, is the Chief Wellness Officer, Director of Simulation Innovation & Research, and an Emergency Medicine physician at NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst. She is a Professor of Emergency Medicine and Medical Education at the Icahn SOM at Mount Sinai. Dr. Bentley completed the Mount Sinai Emergency Medicine residency, Masters of Public Health at Mount Sinai, and a fellowship in Simulation Education at the Institute for Medical Simulation and Advanced Learning of Health + Hospitals. Dr. Bentley stayed on as faculty at Elmhurst after training and served as residency Site Director before transitioning to Medical Director of Simulation and collaborating on opening the hospital-wide Simulation Center. She credits her passion for and expertise in debriefing as the unifier in her professional roles. She led the initiation of Helping Healers Heal at Elmhurst and became the first Health + Hospitals site Chief Wellness Officer in 2021. Dr. Bentley is a clinician, educator, and researcher with focused interests in debriefing, psychological safety, Insitu simulation, simulation for systems testing, teamwork maximization, patient and workforce safety, Safety II principles, and overall workforce well-being and advocacy. She advocates for workforce well-being improvements through focus on the integral connection between quality, patient safety, and workforce well-being. -
Vytas P. Karalius, MD, MPH, MA
Stanford University
"The Resident Unionization Study: A Qualitative Analysis of Drivers and Outcomes"
Dr. Karalius is an Assistant Program Director and is completing his Medical Education Scholarship Fellowship at Stanford University’s Department of Emergency Medicine. He earned his medical degree from the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine and completed his emergency medicine residency at Northwestern University. He also holds a Master of Public Health and a Master of Medical Sciences from Loyola University.
Dr. Karalius also continues to serve as a faculty member for the Harvard Macy Institute Program for Educators in the Health Professions, and recently awarded the Exceptional Faculty designation. As a former SAEM RAMS Board member, Dr. Karalius continues to be involved with SAEM and is a member of the SAEM Education Committee, SAEM Wellness Committee, and SAEM Equity & Inclusion Committee.
Dr. Karalius’ primary focus is on graduate medical education, physician/trainee wellness and workforce attrition. He was recently awared the SAEMF Education Research Training Grant in 2024, for his work focusing on resident unionization as it relates to trainee well-being. He is involved in numerous projects and sitting on numerous department, institutional and national committees focused on wellness and medical education, including the Diversity Advisory Group at Stanford, School of Medicine Admissions Committee, and SAEM. Dr. Karalius has co-authored articles for peer-reviewed publications such as Annals of Emergency Medicine and Journal of Graduate Medical Education. He also has contributed to numerous online publications and podcasts, including articles, podcasts and national webinars on education and physician/trainee wellbeing. -
Amanda J. Deutsch, MD
Thomas Jefferson University
Dr. Amanda J. Deutsch, MD is a Clinical Assistant Professor and Director of Well-Being for the Department of Emergency Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University. Dr. Deutsch earned her undergraduate degree at Harvard University. She subsequently completed her post-baccalaureate and did quality improvement research at Boston Children’s Hospital before starting her career as a medical student at the University of Iowa, where she is from. She completed an Emergency Medicine residency at the University of Pennsylvania, where she completed a track in Healthcare Leadership and Quality Improvement. She most recently completed a fellowship in Physician Wellness at Stanford Emergency Medicine. In her inaugural role as Director of Well-Being at the Department of Emergency Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University she combines her interests in clinical operations, process improvements and well-being.
Dr. Deutsch chairs the #StopTheStigmaEM subcommittee and hopes to normalize conversations around mental health for emergency medicine physicians, address barriers, and foster better mental health care for emergency medicine. Her interests include focusing on gratitude and appreciation to develop a sense of community and a team that can excel for their patients without the cost of their interests, self, and career. Dr. Deutsch loves to tweak process improvements to help foster well-being.
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Al'ai Alvarez, MD
SAEM Nominating Committee Member
Stanford Emergency Medicine
My long-term interest is to study the intersection of Medical Education, Process Improvement (Quality and Clinical Operations), Representation (Diversity), and Well-being (Inclusion/Belonging) through human-centered design. My academic and professional experience has provided me with an excellent background in understanding the drivers for professional fulfillment in medicine and its interplay on efficiencies of care, the culture of wellness, and personal resilience, as highlighted by Stanford WellMD’s Professional Fulfillment Model. Specifically, my work investigates the role of self-compassion and resilience in promoting belongingness and overcoming isolation and loneliness in medicine exacerbated by experiences of medical harm, vicarious trauma, implicit bias, microaggressions, and imposter phenomenon.
I graduated from the faculty fellowship at the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign, where I explored the role of mindfulness in resuscitations. Furthermore, I co-directed and organized the inaugural High-Performance Resuscitation Teams Summit in May 2022 in Chicago, IL, in collaboration with Mayo Clinic and the Mission Critical Teams Institute, to understand commonalities among high-performing teams in healthcare, aerospace, sports, military, special operations, and fire rescue.
As an attending EM physician, I served as the Assistant Medical Director on Quality Education and Clinical Operations at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Emergency Department (ED), the busiest ED in Northern California. This role offered me direct insight into drivers of burnout through inefficiencies in clinical practice and the need for a culture of wellness, especially in quality improvement and peer review. As an Associate Residency Program Director at the Stanford Emergency Medicine Residency Program (2015-2021), I led initiatives to enhance personal resilience while advocating for improving the clinical and learning environment to improve well-being and professional fulfillment.
Currently, I am the Director of Well-Being and co-chair of the Human Potential Team at Stanford Emergency Medicine. I also serve as the Stanford EM Physician Wellness Fellowship Director. As the chair of the Stanford WellMD Physician Wellness Forum, I lead monthly discussions to understand how better to optimize clinical practice environments to improve well-being and professional work-life balance.
As Chair of the SAEM Wellness Committee (2022- ), we are spearheading the “October is #StopTheStigmaEM month,” which has been the most extensive campaign for SAEM, mobilizing national organizations in EM and leveraging social media to increase awareness and support efforts to humanize physicians, prioritize mental health, and normalize receiving mental health support.
Given my disparate physician leadership and clinical experience, I offer a unique and valuable perspective in serving on the Nominations Committee. I aim to continue fostering collaboration, empowerment, and self-compassion in academic emergency medicine's learning and work environment. This includes finding ways to recognize the work of academic EM physicians and EM bound trainees. -
Marla C. Doehring, MD
Associate Professor, Clinical Emergency Medicine
Indiana University School of Medicine
Marla Doehring, MD, is an associate professor of clinical emergency medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine. She received her undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University and her medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She completed her residency in emergency medicine at Indiana University and works as a faculty physician and clinical educator in the emergency department at Eskenazi Hospital which is a Level 1 Trauma Center and the safety net hospital serving Indianapolis, Indiana. She has been honored with the statewide Indiana University Part-Time Faculty Teaching Award. Her interests include emergency medicine education, physician wellness and workplace violence. -
Laura G. Iavicoli, MD, MBA, FACEP, CHEP
NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst
Laura Iavicoli offers two decades of extraordinary service at New York City Health+Hospitals, Elmhurst, as a Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
With a forte for successfully building strong teams and holding a key role leading all facets of healthcare and strategy, Dr. Iavicoli has successfully positioned New York City Health+Hospitals as a leading expert in its field with respect to the application of best business and finance practices contributing to the following successes:
● Navigated the Health System through the COVID-19 pandemic response, leveraging expertise in disaster management to innovate and implement new procedures and treatment protocols.
● Led the organization to reduce health disparities while directing safety event reporting, root cause analysis, national patient safety goals, and the evolution of a culture of safety.
● New York Academic Emergency Medicine Award 2022 - Awarded to a member who has made a significant contribution to advancing emergency care in New York State. Presented at the New York Academic Emergency Medicine Scientific Assembly July 7, 2022.
Dr. Iavicoli’s contributions to public health are immeasurable and anchored by leadership experiences with Elmhurst Hospital, NYC Health + Hospitals, and through initiatives that have had broad-ranging local, regional, and national impacts.
As the Chief Medical Officer at Elmhurst Hospital, Dr. Iavicoli plans and executes strategies to position the facility as a High Reliability Organization through hospital wide assessments, visioning workshops, and action plan development. In this position, she has led Elmhurst Hospital through 17 successful regulatory surveys, including a Joint Commission Triennial survey that produced the best survey results in the history of the organization.
In the role of Senior Vice President of Emergency Management for NYC Health + Hospitals, Dr. Iavicoli established the Central Office Incident Management team encompassing section chiefs, unit leaders, a safety officer, a liaison officer, a public information officer, and an incident commander. She has been credited with building a formal crisis communication system that leverages mass email communications, live webinars, an alert blog, Intranet hub, and software applications to coordinate information distribution throughout the organization.