Isabelle Davis, dean of the School of Nursing at Mountain View University, must develop a plan to support the mental health and well-being of the clinical workforce. She has spent the last three years working with the National Academy of Medicine on clinician well-being and burnout, and now the COVID-19 pandemic is adding a new stressor to the lives of clinicians, including doctors and nurses. Ensuring that clinicians would seek the support and care they needed could be elusive and was often fraught with stigma, especially if the care was psychiatric and even when the help was confidential. Left untreated, severe stress, emotional, and behavioral health issues affecting clinicians led to burnout, which could have very serious consequences on both patients and clinicians. This case, which has been taught successfully online at Darden, addresses financial issues caused by the pandemic, cultural stigma around mental health, and performance indicators to monitor to evaluate mental health care in the health system.
