Leading Physician Well-being Certificate Program

Creating Leaders of Change and Champions of Well-being

Physician leadership has never been a more important skill for the family physician than it is today. Thoughtful and capable family physician leaders can provide stability in uncertain times for their office teams, among their health system colleagues, and within their community. This physician leadership enhances the quality of care that teams can provide to their patients, improves the morale of the care team, and helps communities stay focused on health-enhancing activities.

Leading Physician Well-being (LPW), developed by the AAFP, is a unique certificate program designed to help you develop the leadership skills you need to spearhead that change among the physicians and other clinicians in your practice or health care organization. 

All AAFP active members are eligible for LPW. Residents are eligible if they have the support of their residency program and should submit a letter of support from their program director. Starting in 2024, nonmembers are eligible for the program.

The application period for the 2025-26 program will open in the Fall of 2025. E-mail lpw@aafp.org to get notified when the application period opens.

Learn to Lead Change and Champion Well-being

LPW is a 10-month series that grows family physicians’ knowledge and skills in three foundational areas:

Physician well-being: Build expertise through education about the current state and importance of well-being, how to measure it, and best practices to achieve it, and develop a plan to raise awareness of its importance in your practice and organization.
Leadership development: Learn how to lead through wielding influence, implement change management and performance improvement (PI) activities and communicate with medical colleagues and others, and develop a change management plan to guide your organization’s work to improve physician well-being.
Performance improvement: Gain hands-on experience by developing and implementing a PI-CME project in your practice or organization that’s expected to wrap up one year after the program’s educational experience concludes. This activity meets American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) Performance Improvement Activities requirements.

This learning experience opportunity comprises a mix of livestreamed and in-person events along with regular online learning activities―all of which combine to foster development of a supportive learning community.

The Benefits of Participating in LPW

At completion, you’ll earn:

A Leading Physician Well-being certificate.
Recognition as being an AAFP thought leader and having the skills to serve as a spokesperson for physician well-being.
CME credit, including PI-CME credits
ABFM PI credit.

Over the 10-month course, you will gain:

Peer-to-peer networking, guidance, and support from your colleagues.
The satisfaction of knowing you’re honing your leadership skills while becoming an effective agent for change and a physician well-being expert.
Career development as a physician well-being leader and champion.
A unique opportunity to complete a PI-CME project that directly impacts your practice organization and covers ABFM PI requirements.

Have questions? Get answers to frequently asked questions.

Pricing

	AAFP Member	New Physician	Resident	Nonmember
Standard Pricing	$2,500	$2,500	$2,250	$3,000

The cost of the LPW Certificate program includes the following:

Previous cohort participants have received 50 hours of CME credit, which includes 20 PI-CME hours that meet ABFM Family Medicine Certification (FMC) criteria. The credit application is currently under review.
Everything DiSC^® Workplace on Catalyst Experience (a $200 value)
Individual coaching sessions with faculty on Systems Well-being Improvement Project
Two-year access to AAFP learning platform complete with activity guidance, resources, community discussions, and CME
Networking and community-building with peers and LPW alumni
Top-notch faculty from across the country
Breakfast at in-person activities
Discount to attend the Physician Health and Well-being Conference following Activity A

Please note that cost does not include travel expenses for in-person trainings.

Scholarships are available to AAFP active members. Not a member? Considering joining!

Curriculum Overviews and Learning Objectives

The LPW educational experience is a blend of live and in-person large-group learning, small-group learning, self-reflection, peer-to-peer dialogues, and asynchronous and project-based learning opportunities. Participants gain access to AAFP leaders, with opportunities for mentoring, coaching,and personal growth through professional networking.

Leadership

Overview

Leadership styles/definitions/theory
Practical leadership skills — Personal, professional, and system-focused
Leadership resources — Print, digital, enduring, and emerging

At the completion of the Leadership module, learners will be able to:

Examine leadership development principles and strategies (personal, professional, and system-level).
Learn practical leadership skills that build professional influence, foster leadership success, and catalyze personal and system-level transformation.
Understand how leadership skills coupled with PI activities can accelerate well-being advocacy.

Well-being

Overview

Well-being knowledge — Definitions, domains, and impact of burnout on multiple levels
Well-being skills — Personal, professional, and system-focused
Well-being resources — Applicable personally, in relationships, and as a leader of change

At the completion of the Well-being module, learners will be able to:

Describe the state of physician well-being and why well-being is important to health professionals and to health care organizations.
Discuss factors that contribute to burnout and strategies to improve well-being at the physician, care team, and health care organization levels.
Apply validated tools for measuring and improving well-being personally and in the participant’s organization.

Performance Improvement

Overview

Performance Improvement knowledge — definitions, PI tools, change management theory
Applied Performance Improvement skills — application of tools and theory in professional and system settings.
Performance Improvement resources — Print, digital, enduring, emerging

At the completion of the Performance Improvement module, learners will be able to:

Use various tools used in Performance Improvement to perform root cause analysis, identify and implement potential solutions, and assess success of those solutions in personal and system levels.
Apply tenets of change management strategies to implement sustainable system level well-being initiatives.
Discuss the implications of well-being initiatives in terms of physician burnout, workplace morale, quality measures, financial benchmarks, patient care, and institutional values.

Core Faculty

Jason Marker,  MD, MPA, FAAFP

Dr. Marker is an Associate Director and Clinic Director at the Memorial Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program in South Bend, Indiana, and the General Chair of the AAFP's Leading Physician Well-being Certificate Program.

Catherine Florio Pipas, MD, MPH, FAAFP

Dr. Pipas is Professor, Community & Family Medicine, at Dartmouth and serves as Co-Chair of the AAFP Leading Physician Well-being Program and Chair of the AAFP Physician Health First initiative.

KrisEmily McCrory,  MD, MS, Med Ed, FAAFP

Dr. McCrory practices full scope academic family medicine. She is the associate program director for Cheshire Medical Center-Dartmouth Health Family Medicine Residency Program.

Mark Greenawald, MD, FAAFP

Dr. Greenawald serves as Professor and Vice Chair for Academic Affairs, Well-being, and Professional Development for the Carilion Clinic Department of Family and Community Medicine.

Hani Adel Chaabo, MD, FAAFP, ABOIM

Dr. Chaabo is board-certified in Family and Integrative Medicine. He is medical director of Well-being at Ridgecrest Regional Hospital, which has been recognized by the AMA Joy in Medicine^TM Health System Recognition Program. Dr. Chaabo is an LPW alumnus.

Michelle Owens, DO, FAAFP, FAAHPM

Dr. Owens serves as the Director of Specialty Care at Central Health, overseeing collaborative efforts with specialty clinical and operational teams to establish an innovative patient care approach and space tailored to the needs of underserved communities within Travis County, Texas. Dr. Owens is an LPW alumna.

Mary E. Krebs, MD, FAAFP

Dr. Krebs is Medical Director of Primary Care, Cohere Health; Faculty, Family Medicine Residency at Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio.

Michael Richardson, MD

Dr. Richardson is an assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. He also serves as the Massachusetts Area Medical Director at Carbon Health and oversees the growth and development of urgent care and primary care offices throughout the state of Massachusetts.

Home Group Facilitators

Olusola Adegoke, MD, MPH, FAAFP – Cohort 3
Elizabeth Albright, DO – Cohort 2

Angela Bacigalupo, MD, MPH, FAAFP – Cohort 1
Lauren Brown-Berchtold, MD, FAAFP – Cohort 1

James MacDonald, MD, MPH, FAAFP – Cohort 2
Mellisa Pensa, MD, MPH, FAAFP – Cohort 2
Amanda Steventon, MD, FAAFP – Cohort 1

The LPW Scholar Experience

Read about the experiences of your peers who graduated from previous cohorts. Questions can be directed to LPW@aafp.org.