Physician Peer Support Program

Peer support encourages an authentic human connection with another person who shares similar life experiences – in this case, the unique stressors and challenges faced by physicians. Peers offer non-judgmental listening and non-clinical support with life, work and other issues.

We aim to facilitate these confidential, non-clinical empathetic conversations between colleagues, where physicians feel safe to share issues they are experiencing with someone trained to listen.

Peer support is distinct from: (1) therapy, (2) mentorship where an experienced peer is providing clinical or career advice, and (3) direct clinical care. For example, if a physician presents with suicidality, substance use, mental health concerns, or requesting personal medical advice, providing direct support for these issues is out of scope of the peer supporter role. 
 

The program is available to actively practicing physicians on the lower Sunshine Coast. 

Physicians face unique challenges. Even clinicians with robust personal support networks stand to benefit tremendously from sharing their experiences with peers who have been in a similar situation and can truly understand and empathize with the pain, stress, vulnerability and fear that are common emotional responses to physician experiences such as patient complaints, adverse events and others. Studies have shown that peer support for physicians can be effective in contributing to a culture where physicians feel more comfortable seeking and offering help. People who use peer support show improved coping and self-management skills, have stronger social networks, reduced isolation and a reduced need for intensive services. 

Peer support offers a safe way for clinicians to talk about their experience and emotions with someone who has empathy from having “been there”. The focus of peer support is not to fix the problem. Instead, we offer short-term support through non-judgmental listening, we empower you to recognize your existing strengths and resources, and we connect you to community resources if needed and with your consent.  
Peer support is essentially psychological first aid. It is not therapy, mentorship from an experienced peer, or direct clinical care.  

Peer support might be helpful for physicians who experience work or life stressors and require emotional, non-judgmental support. Examples of this might include: 

• Adverse clinical event (including but not limited to an adverse patient outcome) 
• Patient or college complaint 
• Interpersonal/relational conflict with a patient or colleague 
• Acute life stressor which impacts career (e.g. birth of a new child, bereavement, retirement) 
• Struggles with burnout/moral injury 
• A change that has happened at work that impacts you emotionally 

To access peer support, click on the form here to access the request form. If you would prefer to receive peer support from a peer supporter physician outside of the sunshine coast peer support program, you can also request that on this form. Peer support can also be requested by phoning one of our peer supporters during regular hours.

The Peer Support Program is not intended for crisis response. If you are in crisis, the Doctors of BC Physician Health Program is available 24/7 at 1-800-663-6729

After submitting information on the referral form on this website, the peer support program administrator, a staff member with the Sunshine Coast Division of Family Practice, will receive a notification that the form has been filled out. Only one person, the peer support program administrator, has access to this account at a time. After receiving the peer support request, the program administrator will then identify a peer supporter and they will receive your contact details. The peer supporter will reach out to you within 2-3 days to schedule a conversation.

Peer support conversations occur through the modality of your choice – in person, phone call or video call/Zoom. The duration of a conversation will vary based on your needs – generally 15-45 minutes. Peer support relationships are short term, which means that you will likely have one to three conversations with your peer supporter. With your consent, peer supporters will then connect you to various resources should you require more ongoing support.

Confidentiality is an integral part of our program. Only the peer support program administrator and your peer supporter has access to your name and contact information for the purpose of facilitating a match and contacting you. Peer supporters will not be taking written notes during your conversation.

There are rare cases where confidentiality must be broken, such as when a physician is at risk of harming themselves or others. These are the same reasons you might have to break confidentiality in your everyday clinical practice as a physician. If in the rare case that this situation arises, your peer supporter would make you aware of the situation and support a collaborative approach to addressing the concern.  

Peer support can be requested for a colleague, but ONLY with their permission. First, reach out to your colleague to seek their consent to pass their name and contact information to our peer support program. Then, please use the “refer a physician colleague form” here. Ideally, we would prefer physicians to reach out themselves, but we recognize that in some circumstances, support from a colleague may be needed.

The BC Physician Health Program (PHP) and Joint Collaborative Committees (JCCs) launched the Physician Peer Support Initiative in Spring 2022, and our organization was selected as one of the peer support sites for 2025. Through this new Initiative where we are receiving provincial training and collaboration support from the PHP and JCCs, and we have the autonomy to design a local peer support program tailored to our needs. 

Physician peer supporters are trained by Dr. Jo Shapiro and the BC Physician Health Program. Dr. Shapiro is an Associate Professor with Harvard Medical School and founder of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Centre for Professionalism and Peer Support. She has offered peer support training to many organizations including SickKids Hospital, UBC Resident Wellness Office, MSPEI, etc. Dr. Maureen Mayhew offers training on behalf of the BC PHP. She has been a Program Physician with the PHP for several years and is a Professional Certified Life Coach.  

The launch of the Peer Support Initiative is in part thanks to funding from the JCCs, as well as funding from the $1 million provided over four years by the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), Scotiabank and MD Financial Management Inc’s Physician Wellness+ Initiative. The Sunshine Coast Peer Support Program is a partnership between the Sechelt MSA and Sunshine Coast Division of Family Practice.

• Dr. Setareh Banihosseini 
• Dr. Anthony Barale 
• Dr. Angela Busletta 
• Dr. Brenda Li Pak Tong

Please reach out to the Sunshine Coast Peer Support Administrator at: peersupport@scdivision.ca