Updated Application Supports Practitioner Well-Being
If you are struggling with your mental health even if you feel the issue is insignificant - we urge you to seek help! Practitioners seeking mental healthcare should not fear career setbacks for seeking help. Healthcare practitioners carry an enormous burden that we have seen increase since the COVID pandemic.
To encourage you to seek the mental and physical healthcare you need, the WMC has joined with 18 other medical boards to remove or change stigmatizing language around mental health and substance use disorder in our documents and applications.
In many cases, invasive licensure questions were originally developed with good intent to protect the public. However, there is no evidence indicating that these questions protect the public, while it is well documented that they often lead to practitioners not seeking care. Ensuring that practitioners, like yourself, can access necessary mental health, substance use, and physical healthcare not only benefits your well-being, but it also benefits your patients and your community. Patient outcomes should improve when we prioritize practitioner well-being, because to care for others, clinicians must also be cared for.
The WMC encourages other medical boards and credentialing committees to follow suit. If you have any questions or concerns about these changes, please reach out to our licensing unit at Medical.Licensing@wmc.wa.gov or at 360-236-2750 (option #1).
