Lotte Dyrbye Named Chief Well-Being Officer

April 2022

Lotte N. Dyrbye, MD, MHPE, has been named Senior Associate Dean of Faculty and Chief Well-being Officer for the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Dyrbye is the first to hold this newly created position at the CU School of Medicine. In this role, she will oversee faculty affairs, faculty and leadership development programs, and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and she will lead initiatives that reduce burnout among physicians, residents, and medical students. She will also hold an appointment as professor of medicine.

Dyrbye has been with Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., since 2001, where she has made many creative contributions to education programs, taught medical students and residents, and implemented several innovative programs in support of faculty development, diversity, and well-being. She is professor medicine and medical education and co-director of the Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine Physician Well-Being Program.

“The past two years have been extraordinarily challenging for everyone, particularly for health care workers who have overcome tremendous obstacles to provide excellent and compassionate care throughout the pandemic,” said CU School of Medicine Dean John J. Reilly, Jr., MD. “We are fortunate to have Dr. Dyrbye joining us at CU.”

Dyrbye graduated from the University of Wisconsin Medical School in 1996 and completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine. After working in private practice for a few years, she accepted an appointment at Mayo Clinic in September 2001, where she rose through the ranks to become professor of medicine and medical education at the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine in 2014. She earned a Master of Health Professions Education from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine in 2009.

She has also led significant initiatives to promote faculty development at Mayo Clinic, including serving as assistant dean of faculty development for the Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education and creating and implementing Mayo’s Academy of Educational Excellence. Through these efforts, Dyrbye has helped create useful and popular programming, including short videos, that can fit into the busy schedules of faculty. The “Take5” videos are broadly available for use in Mayo Clinic faculty meetings and cover key topics of interest, such as how to deal with patients expressing bias toward learners. In 2018, the videos were viewed more than 33,000 times.

As co-director of the Program on Physician Well-Being at Mayo, Dyrbye has led numerous national and multi-institutional studies, conducted randomized clinical trials of possible solutions, and been an innovator. She has received 19 competitive research grants to support her work, and she is frequently invited to give presentations nationally and internationally. Dyrbye is author of more than 140 journal articles, abstracts, and other written publications related to physician well-being. Her articles have been cited more than 18,000 times.

Dyrbye is co-author of the National Academy of Medicine’s consensus study, “Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being.” The book was named the 2021 winner of the James A. Hamilton Award, given annually to the authors of a management or health care book judged outstanding by the American College of Healthcare Executives.