Heather Forkey, MD, the Joy McCann Professor for Women in Medicine, will be the keynote speaker at the annual UMass Medical School luncheon hosted by the Diversity and Inclusion Office and the Women’s Faculty Committee in recognition of Women’s Health Month on Tuesday, May 15.
Dr. Forkey, associate professor of pediatrics, director of the Foster Children Evaluation Service (FaCES), and chief of the Division of Child Protection for the UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center, will present “Burnout, Brains and Befriending: The Biology of Burnout and Remedies to Restore Resilience.”
Burnout and secondary traumatic stress have gained attention as a growing literature has chronicled the symptoms and its increasing prevalence, but there has been little understanding of why or how burnout occurs until recent advances in neuroscience. Understanding the physiology of the spectrum of burnout and secondary traumatic stress can shed new light on the issue and the most effective institutional and individual response.
In 2017, Forkey was named the Joy McCann Professor for Women in Medicine, which identifies and rewards female faculty leadership in medical education, research, patient care and community service. She has identified physician burnout, especially the issue of secondary traumatic stress for caregivers, as the focus of her professorship project, for which she will develop an intervention to promote resilience and mitigate factors leading to burnout and secondary traumatic stress.
The Women’s Health Month event will take place from noon to 1 p.m. in the Faculty Conference Room, with lunch available at 11:30 a.m. RSVPs are requested; email Fernanda.Gama@umassmed.edu for more information.
Related story on UMassMedNow:
Heather Forkey named Joy McCann Professor for Women in Medicine
