About the Webinar
Physician well-being is essential to a thriving healthcare system, yet many medical professionals hesitate to seek help due to fear of regulatory consequences. With rising rates of burnout, substance use disorders, and physician suicide, it is critical that regulatory bodies create pathways that encourage early intervention without compromising patient safety.
This session will explore the concept of a "safe haven" within medical board regulatory systems—an approach that allows healthcare professionals to seek care for mental health challenges, substance use disorders, and other impairing conditions without immediate disciplinary action. During this session, attendees will hear from a physician who overcame addiction and now advocates for physician support systems. Her personal journey will provide a powerful perspective on the importance of safe haven policies and Physician Health Programs (PHPs) in breaking down barriers to care.
About the Speakers
Mary A. Azzarito, Esq., has been litigating since 1994, representing clients in Massachusetts state and federal courts and, more recently, in the federal court in Vermont. Mary focuses, in her practice, on the defense of medical professionals, but she also has a wealth of varied experience in other areas of the law, including criminal defense, white collar defense, administrative law, and general liability. In addition, Mary has represented numerous parents under the auspices of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. From 2021-2023, Mary was selected, based on a vote of licensed attorneys in Massachusetts and a review by an independent blue ribbon panel, as a "Super Lawyer," a designation awarded to no more than 5% of the lawyers in Massachusetts and published annually in Boston Magazine and New England Super Lawyers.
Courtney Barrows McKeown, MD, is a board-certified general surgeon at Columbia Surgical Partners, a general surgery private practice group in Columbia, TN. She is on staff at Southern Tennessee Regional Health System - Pulaski, where she is leading the development of a new general, breast surgery and endoscopy program. Dr. McKeown earned her MD at New York Medical College, graduating Alpha Omega Alpha and was awarded the Samuel Spiegel Prize for Clinical and Academic Excellence. She completed general surgery residency training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, where she received Isaac O. Mehrez Award for Surgical Excellence and the BIDMC Resident Teacher of the Year Award. After finishing residency in 2020, Dr. McKeown received additional training in hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. She has authored over 20 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, and presented her research work at regional and national meetings.
As a result of her own personal experience, Dr. McKeown has become an advocate and speaker on the topics of physician mental health, suicide awareness, substance use disorders, recovery, and navigating challenging job transitions as an early career surgeon. Her work has appeared on KevinMD and the website "ReThinking Residency". She has also appeared on several podcasts, including the Boss Business of Surgery Series, Promising Young Surgeon, and Re-Mind Yourself (among others), where she shared her story of struggling with life-long perfectionism, anxiety, and substance use disorder, followed by her recovery and how she overcame several barriers to get her life and career back on track. She will celebrate 4 years of sobriety this March. Dr. McKeown is an ambassador for the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes' Foundation to advocate, increase awareness, and identify solutions to promote physician health and well-being. Her mission is to provide hope and mentorship to other early career physicians who may be struggling with similar issues she faced, and help drive systemic changes to make our professional climate better for the next generation of surgeons
Arthur Hengerer, MD, is a graduate of Westminster College in New Wilmington, PA, and the Albany Medical College, Dr. Hengerer completed a residency in Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery at University Hospital in Syracuse, NY, followed by a fellowship in Pediatric Otolaryngology at Boston Children’s Hospital and Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, MA. His career in healthcare spans 40 years, encompassing various roles from patient care to leadership positions responsible for regulation and policy creation. Much of his clinical practice was at the University of Rochester, where he served as Chair of the Department of Otolaryngology from 1981-2007. In 2002, he was appointed to the NYS Medical Conduct Board, chairing the Board from 2011-2019. Additionally, Dr. Hengerer was elected to the Board of the Federation of State Medical Boards from 2011-2018, serving as Chair in 2016-2017, and served on the National Board of Medical Examiners Advisory Board from 2017-2021. He represented FSMB in the National Academy of Medicine Action Collaborative on Well-being and Resilience. His most notable accomplishment is chairing the FSMB workgroup that drafted the report on physician well-being in 2018, outlining guidelines for mental health questioning on state licensing applications and renewals to be limited to current impairment. He is currently focused on creating “safe haven” policy and legislation to protect information for physicians receiving care when appropriate. These endeavors underscore his strong commitment to addressing burnout and wellness in clinicians, particularly heightened by the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, Dr. Hengerer serves as a board member of the FSMB Foundation and the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs.
About the Moderator
Katie L. Templeton, JD As the daughter of a hard-working physician, Katie Templeton, JD was inspired by her father to “do no harm” at a very early age and, later, to focus on medicine as the cornerstone of her professional legal career. Ms. Templeton is a dynamic, skilled attorney with over 18 years’ experience in all phases of healthcare law, litigation, and claims management, focusing on medical outcomes, patient safety, and best practices. Ms. Templeton has served as a Public Member on the Oklahoma State Board of Osteopathic Examiners for over 10 years, as President of the Board from 2020-2022, and currently serves as Vice President. During her Board tenure, she served as a member of the Oklahoma Opioid Task Force and personally authored the Best Practice guidelines for physicians in the state regarding opioid prescribing and legislative compliance, and Best Practice guidelines regarding legislation implemented following the Dobbs decision. In May 2020, Ms. Templeton was elected as a Public Member to the FSMB Board of Directors and in 2024 as Chair.
Target Audience
This activity is designed for a wide range of healthcare professionals, including physicians, physician assistants, allopathic healthcare providers (nurses, pharmacists, therapists), leadership staff of state medical and osteopathic licensing boards, and others who are interested in physician health and well-being.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this educational activity, participants should be able to:
- Explain how codifying regulatory protection with the referral processes to PHPs can increase their use as a safe and effective alternative to disciplinary action for physicians dealing with mental health, burnout, substance use, and other health issues.
- Discuss the importance of safeguarding PHP records as privileged information, ensuring confidentiality except when patient safety is at risk and the importance of balancing safety concerns with the protection of physician privacy.
- Review the rationale, mechanisms and examples for excluding disclosure of health conditions on licensure and credentialing applications for physicians who comply with state-approved PHPs, and the impact of such measures on physician well-being and safety.
The Federation of State Medical Boards is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
Credit Designation Statements
The Federation of State Medical Boards designates this enduring material for a maximum of 1.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
The Federation of State Medical Boards certifies that non-physicians will receive an attendance certificate stating they participated in the activity that was designated for 1.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™.
Release Date: 03/15/2025
Expiration Date: 03/15/2027 (Date after which this enduring material is no longer accredited for CME credit.)
Disclosure Declaration
As an organization accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) requires that the content of CME activities and related materials provide balance, independence, objectivity, and scientific rigor. All faculty, planners, and others in a position to control continuing medical education content participating in an accredited continuing education activity are required to disclose all financial relationships with ineligible companies. Ineligible companies are organizations whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. Faculty (authors, presenters, speakers) are encouraged to provide a balanced view of therapeutic options by utilizing either generic names or other options available when utilizing trade names to ensure impartiality.
All faculty members are asked to disclose all financial relationships they have had in the past 24 months with ineligible companies regardless of the potential relevance of each relationship to the education and of the amount. The FSMB has implemented a mechanism to identify and resolve all conflicts of interest prior to the activity. The intent of this policy is to identify potential conflicts of interest so participants can form their own judgments with full disclosure of the facts. Participants will be asked to evaluate whether the speaker’s outside interests reflect a possible bias in the planning or presentation of the activity. The following indicates the disclosure declaration information and the nature of any relationships with ineligible companies.
None of the other planners, speakers, and moderators for this activity have relevant financial relationships to disclose with ineligible companies.
Disclosure of Unlabeled Uses
This educational activity may contain discussion of published and/or investigational uses of agents that are not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. For additional information about approved uses, including approved indications, contraindications, and warnings, please refer to the prescribing information for each product, or consult the Physicians’ Desk Reference.
System Requirements
In order to view this presentation, your computer must have audio capabilities (working speakers or headphones) and must have an internet browser capable of playing an HTML5 video.
Instructions for Participants and Obtaining CME Credit
There is no fee for this activity. To receive credit and receive their certificates, participants must view this CME activity in its entirety and complete the evaluation. The estimated time for completion of this activity is 1.5 hours.