Trigger warning: This episode contains discussion of physician mental health and suicide. If this topic is distressing, please consider listening with support nearby or using local mental health resources.

In this episode of Unstable Vitals, hosts Dr. Adam Brown and Dr. Lara Zibners sit down with Dr. Stefanie Simmons, Chief Medical Officer of the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes' Foundation, for an urgent, unfiltered conversation about the mental health crisis in medicine. Timed for National Physician Suicide Awareness Day (September 17), the episode explores why clinicians—especially emergency and critical care providers—face elevated rates of burnout, depression, and suicide; the systemic barriers that keep clinicians from seeking help; and concrete policy and operational changes that can begin to “heal the healers.”

Dr. Simmons explains the Foundation’s work that’s shifting culture and protections for clinicians. The hosts bring personal stories from residency and frontline care to highlight how stigma, intrusive application questions, and unsafe workplace systems drive clinicians away from care. This episode is essential listening for physicians, nurses, hospital leaders, policy makers, and anyone who cares about the future of the healthcare workforce.

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