Connect

Dear Colleagues,

We recognize that the COVID-19 pandemic has been enormously stressful for all UVA Health team members in both clinical and non-clinical roles, and on personal and professional levels. We want to reiterate the commitment of the UVA Health leadership team to support you now and in the months to come, as together we meet the challenges of this pandemic and beyond.

Despite the additional stressors of the past eight months, you and your UVA Health colleagues have provided exceptional care to our patients and their families, continued to teach the next generation of clinicians and researchers, advanced our knowledge through scientific discovery, and continued UVA’s tradition of service to community. 

We are seeking to better understand how you are doing with your occupational stressors, what has helped you, and what we can do institutionally to best support you and your colleagues in the future. 

The American Medical Association (AMA) has invited UVA Health to participate in a national COVID-Coping Assessment as part of the Solutions to Increase Joy in Medicine strategic initiative.

We write to invite you to respond to the AMA Coping with COVID-19 for Caregivers Survey.  This survey has a standard set of questions and 5 UVA-specific questions. The survey will be open until Nov. 16. [NOTE: As of Nov. 11, the deadline has been extended to Nov. 23.]

This survey is confidential and has been approved by the Institutional Review Board as a Quality Improvement Initiative. The data is housed at the AMA, and UVA has no ability to identify any individual respondent. In order to further ensure confidentiality, responses of fewer than 8 in any group will only be reported in an aggregate format. Your participation is voluntary and at any time you can choose not to complete the survey. 

Survey results will include UVA data to be benchmarked against national peer organizations. The results will be reviewed and analyzed by the Wellbeing Leadership Working Group including: Dean Pam Cipriano; Sr. Associate Dean Sue Pollart;  Department of Surgery Chair and Chief Medical Officer Reid Adams; UPG Chief Executive Officer Corey Feist; and Richard Westphal, PhD, Peggy Plews-Ogan, MD, and Stewart Babbott, MD of the Wisdom and Wellbeing program.  Survey results will be used by UVA Health leaders and management teams to identify ways in which we may best support you in these challenging times.

**If you are currently in crisis or need help, immediate resources and contacts are available via FEAP. To contact the FEAP office, please call 434.243.2643 or email feap@virginia.edu. For urgent matters, please contact the hospital page office at 924.0000 and ask that the FEAP consultant on-call be paged. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you are in need, or if you think that a colleague may be. 

We are looking forward to using the information that you share with us to create positive cultural change here at UVA Health, and to help us understand how we can help you and your peers on a local to a national level. 

Thank you for all you do in service to our patients, community and one another.  

Sincerely,

Bobby Chhabra, MD
President, University Physicians Group

Pam Cipriano, PhD
Dean, School of Nursing

Wendy Horton, PharmD, MBA
Chief Operating Officer, Medical Center

David Wilkes, MD
Dean, School of Medicine

K. Craig Kent, MD
Executive Vice President for Health Affairs