Restoring Physician Mental Health and Honoring the Legacy of Dr. Lorna Breen, With Dr. Stefanie Simmons

Most physicians know a colleague who has struggled. Many know one who didn't make it.

In this episode of How I Doctor, Offcall co-founder Dr. Graham Walker sits down with Dr. Stefanie Simmons, Chief Medical Officer of the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes' Foundation and practicing emergency physician in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for one of the most important conversations in medicine right now.

Physician mental health isn't an abstract policy issue.

It's the licensing form that places a mental health history question directly after "are you a pedophile." It's the peripartum depression Stefanie developed during her own residency that she never treated because a formal diagnosis felt like a career risk. It's Dr. Lorna Breen, chair of emergency medicine at New York Presbyterian, working 18-hour days through the first COVID wave in Manhattan, who received mental health care and told her family she was terrified it would cost her her license.

Stefanie didn't know Lorna before her death. But like every emergency physician in the country, she was one degree of separation from her. And when Lorna's family started hearing from hundreds, then thousands, of healthcare workers who said "she wasn't alone," Stefanie was one of the people who called.

Stefanie makes the case that physician mental health is a systems failure, not a personal one, and that the fix is structural. The foundation has already changed the credentialing language at more than 2,000 hospitals and across 70 state licensing boards, covering more than 3 million health workers. The Lorna Breen Healthcare Provider Protection Act was reauthorized in February 2026. The calculus is shifting. But the work is far from complete.

This episode is an honest conversation about why physicians won't seek mental health care, what it costs when they don't, and how one foundation is rebuilding the system from the inside out.

What You'll Learn

How the Dr. Lorna Breen Healthcare Provider Protection Act works, what it funds, and why its reauthorization matters for every physician
How a single question on a licensing application has kept generations of physicians from getting help, and what the foundation is replacing it with
Why physicians massively overestimate how much their colleagues will judge them for seeking mental health care, and what the data actually shows
What Stefanie's own experience with peripartum depression during residency taught her about the cost of not getting help
Why burnout is an occupational syndrome, not a personal failing
What a struggling physician can do right now, and where to find support

If You or a Colleague Need Help

988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988 / 988lifeline.org
Physician Support Line: free, confidential, anonymous, staffed by psychiatrists / 1 (888) 409-0141 / physiciansupportline.com
Emotional PPE Project: free anonymous mental health care for clinicians / emotionalppe.com
All For Mental Health resource hub: drlornabreen.org/all-for-mental-health

Resources and Where to Find Stefanie and the Foundation