Night Shift Mastery: Thriving as a Nocturnist by Setting Boundaries and Finding Balance (Wellness Committee-Sponsored)

Working nights is a fundamental aspect of emergency medicine, but managing night shifts alongside academic duties can be challenging. In this session, we will explore strategies to help nocturnist academic emergency physicians thrive. We will discuss practical approaches for setting boundaries and balancing clinical and non-clinical responsibilities. Attendees will learn how to optimize scheduling, manage their academic workload, and achieve a healthier work-life balance while working night shifts.

Learning Objectives:

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:
  • Identify the unique challenges faced by academic emergency medicine physicians who primarily work as nocturnists, including impacts on personal well-being, academic productivity and work-life balance
  • Develop strategies for setting boundaries between clinical, academic and personal responsibilities to maintain overall well-being and prevent burnout
  • Apply techniques to optimize scheduling and manage clinical and academic workload effectively

Presenters: 

  • Kyra Reed, MD
  • Victoria Lynn Zhou, MD
  • Al'ai Alvarez, MD (he/him/his)
  • Stephanie Kok, MD, FAAEM
  • Mia L. Karamatsu, MD
Authors

  • Kyra Reed, MD

    Assistant Program Director

    Indiana University School of Medicine

    Dr. Reed is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM). She also serves as Assistant Program Director for the IUSM Emergency Medicine Residency. Her career interest are centered on resident wellness and mental health.

  • Victoria L. Zhou, MD

    Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine

    University of Vermont

    Victoria Zhou, MD is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Vermont. She currently serves as Associate Residency Program Director for the University of Vermont Emergency Medicine Residency.
  • alai.alvarez - Al'ai Alvarez

    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.

  • Stephanie Kok, MD, FAAEM

    UICOMP Emergency Medicine Residency

    Stephanie Kok, MD is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, Peoria (UICOMP) where she has served as the Assistant Program Director since 2021. She graduated from UICOMP Emergency Medicine Residency in 2014 and joined the Core Faculty in 2015. She served as Director of Rotator Residents and the Oral Boards Curriculum Director for 6 and 8 years respectively. She has also served as the Faculty Director for her residency’s FemInEM program since its inception in 2020. She has been chosen by her residents as Mentor of the Year in 2015 and 2022 and Teacher of the Year in 2020 and 2022. Through all of this, she has been a dedicated nocturnalist since graduating from residency and has no plans to change. In her personal life, she loves to take her nieces and nephews on cross-country train trips, go on dumpling tours with her parents, and play endless games of Dutch Blitz on beach vacations with her sisters. She also loves to read and, of course, hates missing her 8-hour naps during the day.

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