Let’s Be All In When It Comes to Preventing Health Worker Burnout and Suicide

by J. Corey Feist

Top image: Corey and Jennifer Feist on Capitol Hill advocating for the Lorna Breen Act.

Nearly every day in the United States, a doctor dies by suicide. The startling statistic — that each year, 300 to 400 doctors die by suicide, published in the American Psychiatric Association — is even harder to comprehend when it is broken down by gender. Female doctors are at particular risk, with suicide rates 250 to 400 percent higher among female physicians when compared to females in other professions, research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows.

It is not just doctors but workers across the health care field who are suffering. Nurse suicide rates are alarmingly higher when compared to the general population. Suicide rates among pharmacists are also significantly higher. In fact, a mental health crisis has been plaguing American health care for decades. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that health workers’ mental health is worse than any other segment of the U.S. workforce. Among health workers reporting mental distress severe enough to meet diagnostic criteria for a mental health condition, only 38 percent reported seeking care, CDC research shows.

My family has lived this nightmare. But, through our grief, we have made great strides in providing support to hundreds of thousands of health care workers, all in the name of Dr. Lorna Breen.   

I married a brilliant lawyer, Jennifer, whose sister, Lorna, was a brilliant doctor. In early 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic was spiraling, Lorna fell ill with the virus. As soon as she was fever-free, she went back to working 15- to 18-hour shifts. Lorna told my wife, her sister, that for the first time in her professional life, she could not keep up.

For a caregiver, not being able to keep up — to care for people, to cure people — was devastating. Lorna worried her colleagues would harshly judge her performance.

Lorna’s mental health declined rapidly and significantly. In mid-April, Jennifer and I got Lorna to our home in Virginia, where we could help her get the care she needed. At that point, Lorna began to worry that, because she had accessed mental health services, she would lose her job when forced to disclose it in future licensing and credentialing forms.

“The strength of our healthcare system is proportional to the mental health of our practitioners and the degree to which we support them.” –Noah Wyle, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, April 3, 2025

Jennifer and I were astonished to find that, largely, Lorna was right. Not in New York, which extended protections to physicians who accessed mental health care, but in many other states, Lorna’s license may have been at risk. More so, her privileges to practice within her own hospital were in jeopardy because of the lack of mental health privacy within the organization’s credentialing process.

Lorna’s worries consumed her, and on April 26, 2020, she took her own life. About 11 hours later, and against our family’s objections, The New York Times published Lorna’s cause of death.

There it was in print: the pain Lorna never wanted anyone but Jennifer to know.

While this publicity was unwelcome, its side effect was that it drove our family to action. Before the pandemic, I ran the University of Virginia (UVA) Physicians Group, which employs doctors and nurse practitioners who work in UVA hospitals. I was part of the credentialing team trusted to vet physicians. I knew that a person could be both an incredible caregiver and have a mental health condition, such as depression or anxiety.

After Lorna’s death, Jennifer wanted to tell that story — the story of a brilliant woman who, like her patients, simply needed compassionate care and laws to protect her privacy.

Once Jennifer started speaking out, it did not take long for Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) to contact us. The three of us discussed the mental health resources available to health care workers. Sen. Kaine was surprised to learn there were virtually none. Even his son, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, had more tools at his disposal.

In August 2022, Sen. Kaine introduced a bill to improve the infrastructure around the mental health of the healthcare workforce. Less than two years after Lorna’s death, President Joe Biden signed the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act into law in March 2022. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI), Todd Young (R-IN), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA), along with Representatives Susan Wild (D-PA) and David McKinley (R-WV), were co-sponsors. More than 70 organizations, like the American Hospital Association, supported the bill, as did corporations like Johnson & Johnson.

Lorna’s law created grants for training health professionals to reduce and prevent suicide, burnout, mental health conditions, and substance use disorders. So far, these grants have helped more than 250,000 health care workers in 24 states. Measurements show that some grantees have reduced burnout by up to 37 percent, in part by rethinking workflows to prevent the type of work-induced fatigue Lorna experienced at the end of her life.

The law also established a national education and training program to guide healthcare leaders in addressing the specific operational factors and burdens that drive their workforce’s burnout and changing policies that prevent their workforce from accessing mental health care.

The importance of awareness cannot be overlooked. Had Lorna known that she did have privacy protections in New York State, perhaps she would still be with us today.

The Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation, together with its ALL IN: Wellbeing First for Healthcare coalition of over 30 national associations and over 300 Foundation Ambassadors, is now working to reauthorize and fund this bill. One priority is to provide grants to health care organizations to reduce the administrative burden health workers face, which is a major contributor to burnout. In 2023, the American Medical Association Organizational Biopsy revealed that, out of their average 59-hour workweek, surveyed physicians spent about eight hours on administrative tasks.

Our Foundation also is working to address overly invasive mental health questions on licensing and credentialing applications that can prevent health workers from seeking support and that may increase the risk of suicide. Such questioning tends to be broad or stigmatizing, such as asking about mental health care and treatment, both past and current, which has no bearing on a health worker’s ability to provide care and violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.

If you have watched the Max streaming sensation, “The Pitt,” you know health workers are human. They need support and care, and when they do not get it, the system breaks down. We demand a lot of our nation’s healthcare workers. They deserve care, too.

J. Corey Feist, JD, MBA, is co-founder and chief executive officer of the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation. Dedicated to improving the well-being of healthcare professionals, Feist advocates for systemic changes to reduce burnout and improve mental health support for health workers.