Please join us in congratulating Dr. Lucy Willis on being named one of the 2022 New York American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) Unsung Heroes.
Dr. Willis, Assistant Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine, is highly regarded as an expert in physician wellness, and is the Founder and Co-Director of the Faculty Wellness Committee within the Department of Emergency Medicine. She helped to develop “Doc Box,” a comprehensive peer support program aimed at providing resources to help faculty and staff thrive personally and professionally, enabling them to provide the highest quality of care to patients.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Willis co-led weekly peer support groups with faculty members over Zoom, and helped establish a one-on-one peer support system and buddy program to improve morale and culture. She also collaborated with the psychiatry liaison to the Department of Emergency Medicine to minimize the barriers to faculty reaching out for mental health services. In the summer of 2020, Dr. Willis supervised and assisted two medical students enrolled in the Department’s Healthcare Leadership & Management Scholars program in creating, administering and analyzing a survey of faculty members’ utilization of wellness services in the first wave of the pandemic.
Dr. Willis was an integral part of the Department’s winning the New York American College of Emergency Physicians (NYACEP) Exemplary Commitments to Physician Well-Being Award, and has spoken nationally on the topic. She has frequently published on physician wellness, including an article in Emergency Medicine News about the importance of peer support and the ubiquitous feeling of guilt among physicians during the pandemic. In 2021, she was a co-author with other WCM colleagues on a paper titled “A Grassroots Approach to Protecting Physicians Against Burnout and Building an Engaging Practice Environment,” in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery.
Congratulations again to Dr. Willis!
