Sanjay Saint
Emotional well-being is key to mentorship, CPO researchers tell Harvard Business Review

Tending to emotional well-being is at the core of the mentor-mentee relationship, write Center for Positive Organizations faculty associates David P. Fessell and Sanjay Saint in the Harvard Business Review article “Mentoring During a Crisis.”
The article—co-authored with Vineet Chopra, an Associate Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine at Michigan Medicine—focuses on the critical role mentorship can play for frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“You as a mentor can play a critical role, providing them with a stabilizing force, someone who can help talk them down when they’re triggered, scared, burned out, or confused—all off the record,” the researchers write.
“If you consider yourself a mentor to someone on the front lines, the first step is to take care of yourself. You can’t offer emotional support if you don’t have your own emotional fortifications in place. Then you can turn to helping your mentees by offering them emotional support and concrete tactics.”
Fessell is author of numerous peer-reviewed radiology publications, is a creativity consultant, executive coach, and Professor of Radiology at the University of Michigan. He also co-directs the Leadership curriculum for medical students at the University of Michigan.
Saint is the Chief of Medicine at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and the George Dock Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan.
Photo: The CEO Kid from Unsplash
Islands of Mindfulness within Oceans of Chaos
Dr. Sanjay Saint
Chief of Medicine, VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System
George Dock Professor, Michigan Medicine
Dr. Vineet Chopra
Division Chief of Hospital Medicine
University of Michigan
About the talk
At some point in our careers, each of us will struggle with balancing competing demands on our time. Work life can be hectic in any organization, resulting in burnout, errors, stunted creativity, and poor performance. Incorporating mindfulness into our work lives might be one way to help restore equilibrium.
In this lively and engaging talk, Saint and Chopra will share research on how practices of mindfulness can be established within the oceans of chaos to fuel “heartfulness,” restoring kindness and compassion. Mindfulness-based interventions engender attitudes of curiosity and connection that allow us to listen attentively, recognize errors, refine skills, and focus on mission—ultimately leading to better performance. Saint and Chopra will offer various strategies and approaches—so-called “intersectional innovations” (or aha moments)—that can be used to improve personal and organizational performance.
Want to learn more, read these Harvard Business Review articles written by Saint and Chopra:
About Saint
Sanjay Saint, MD, MPH, is the Chief of Medicine at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and the George Dock Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan.
His research focuses on patient safety, implementation science, and medical decision-making. He has authored approximately 340 peer-reviewed papers with over 110 appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, The Lancet, or the Annals of Internal Medicine. He serves on the editorial board of 7 peer-reviewed journals including the Annals of Internal Medicine, is a Special Correspondent to the New England Journal of Medicine, and is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and the Association of American Physicians (AAP).
He has written for The Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review, and gave a 2016 TEDx talk on culture change in healthcare that has over 1 million views. He has co-authored two books published by Oxford University Press: Preventing Hospital Infections: Real-World Problems, Realistic Solutions and Teaching Inpatient Medicine: What Every Physician Needs to Know. In 2017, he was awarded the HSR&D Health System Impact Award from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Distinguished Mentor Award from the University of Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research. In 2016, he received the Mark Wolcott Award from the Department of Veterans Affairs as the National VA Physician of the Year and was elected as an international honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London).
He received his Medical Doctorate from UCLA, completed a medical residency and chief residency at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), and obtained a Master of Public Health (as a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar) from the University of Washington in Seattle. He has been a visiting professor at over 100 universities and hospitals in the United States, Europe, and Asia, and has active research studies underway with investigators in Switzerland, Italy, Japan, and Thailand.
About Chopra
Dr. Vineet Chopra is Associate Professor of Medicine, Chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine and Research Scientist at Michigan Medicine and the VA Ann Arbor Health System.
A career hospitalist, Chopra’s research is dedicated to improving the safety of hospitalized patients through prevention of hospital-acquired complications. His work focuses on identifying and preventing complications such as infection and thrombosis associated with central venous catheters, with a particular emphasis on peripherally inserted central catheters. Chopra is funded by a Career Development Award from the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality. He has also received grant support from the National Institute of Aging, the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Foundation of Michigan, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Heart Association.
Chopra is the recipient of numerous teaching and research awards including the 2016 Kaiser Permanente Award for Teaching (Clinical), the Jerome W. Conn Award for Outstanding Research in the Department of Medicine at Michigan, the 2016 Society of Hospital Medicine Excellence in Research Award, the 2014 McDevitt Award for Research Excellence, and the 2014 Society of Hospital Medicine Young Investigator Award. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and serves as Associate Editor at the American Journal of Medicine and the Journal of Hospital Medicine. Chopra is also Feature Editor for Annals for Hospitalists, a new addition to Annals of Internal Medicine.
Host
Wayne Baker, Faculty Director of the Center for Positive Organizations; Robert P. Thome Professor of Business; Professor of Management and Organizations; Professor of Sociology
Sponsors
The Center for Positive Organizations thanks University of Michigan Organizational Learning, Sanger Leadership Center, Tauber Institute for Global Operations, Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies, Lisa and David (MBA ’87) Drews, and Diane (BA ’73) and Paul (MBA ’75) Jones for their support of the 2018-19 Positive Links Speaker Series.


Sanjay Saint authors HBR article about physicians, mentors, and mindfulness
In the Harvard Business Review article, “How Doctors Can Be Better Mentors,” Sanjay Saint (with co-author Vineet Chopra) explain how practicing mindfulness can lead to a better mentor/mentee relationship. When mentoring a colleague, Saint and Chopra try to practice four things: being available, knowing their role, be objective, and putting themselves in their mentee’s shoes.
Saint is a faculty associate of the Center for Positive Organizations and is the George Dock Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan, the Director of the VA/University of Michigan Patient Safety Enhancement Program, and the Chief of Medicine at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.
Vineet Chopra & Sanjay Saint
Please note: This event is for invited researchers only.
Title:
In Search of the ‘Aha’ Moment in Healthcare
Talk description:
In this presentation, two of Michigan Medicine’s leaders will discuss their search for “An A-ha Moment in Healthcare.” In the first half, Dr. Sanjay Saint (the George Dock Professor of Medicine and Chief of Medicine at the VA Ann Arbor Health System) will open by discussing the concept of intersectional innovations, providing examples of how medicine has learned from other fields. Using infection prevention as a canvas, he will review such things as culture, power-distance index and cognitive psychology as tools to improve patient safety. During the second half, Dr. Vineet Chopra (Chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine at Michigan Medicine) will introduce the concept of mindfulness and showcase research conducted by their team to improve hand hygiene among healthcare workers.
Biography:
Dr. Sanjay Saint, MD, MPH, is the Chief of Medicine at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and the George Dock Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan. He is also a faculty associate at the Center for Positive Organizations. His research focuses on patient safety, implementation science, and medical decision-making. He has authored over 320 peer-reviewed papers with over a third appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, The Lancet, or the Annals of Internal Medicine. He serves on the editorial board of 7 peer-reviewed journals including the Annals of Internal Medicine, is a Special Correspondent to the New England Journal of Medicine, and is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and the Association of American Physicians (AAP).
Dr. Vineet Chopra, MD, is Associate Professor of Medicine, Chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine and Research Scientist at Michigan Medicine and the VA Ann Arbor Health System. A career hospitalist, Dr. Chopra’s research is dedicated to improving the safety of hospitalized patients through prevention of hospital-acquired complications. His work focuses on identifying and preventing complications such as infection and thrombosis associated with central venous catheters, with a particular emphasis on peripherally inserted central catheters.
Research is the heart of Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS), and we want to make sure that we support each other in developing high quality research. To that end, we created the Adderley Positive Research Incubator for sharing and encouraging POS-related research ideas that are at various stages of development.
Learn more about the Adderley Positive Research Incubator here and direct questions about individual sessions to Amy Young at baldwin@umich.edu.
Sanjay Saint co-authored an article on mentoring for the Harvard Business Review
Sanjay Saint co-authored, “What mentors wish their mentees knew” for the Harvard Business Review. The article explores the role and characteristics of a successful mentee in academic medicine and beyond.
Saint is a faculty associate with the Center for Positive Organizations, the George Dock Professor of Internal Medicine at Michigan Medicine, and the Chief of Medicine at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.
Sanjay Saint coauthored a Medicine at Michigan piece on mindfulness
Sanjay Saint coauthored “Islands of Mindfulness” for Medicine at Michigan’s Gray Matters series.
Saint and co-authors discussed the importance of mindfulness to reduce stressors and improve resilience and well-being for physicians. It is proposed that mindfulness could improve clinicians’ mental health and performance. A pilot study on handwashing as a mindful practice is included. The authors also argued that mindfulness builds “heartfulness,” which results in greater kindness and compassion.
Saint is a faculty associate at the Center for Positive Organizations and MD, MPH, is the Chief of Medicine at the VA Ann Arbor VA Healthcare System and the George Dock Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on preventing healthcare-associated infection, implementation science, and medical decision-making.
Sanjay Saint coauthored article on mentoring for Harvard Business Review
Sanjay Saint, faculty associate with the Center for Positive Organizations, coauthored an article in the Harvard Business Review, “6 Things Every Mentor Should Do.”
The article explained the role of a successful mentoring relationship. According to Saint, shaping a mentee is a deliberate decision and process that includes picking the right mentee, creating a team, maintaining ground rules, heading off and resolving conflict, being honest and authentic, and preparing mentees to become the next mentors.
Teaching inpatient medicine – what every physician needs to know
The topics covered in this article include:
- Practical instruction on effective clinical instruction drawn from the collective wisdom of 12 renowned inpatient attending physicians
- Informed by the authors’ extensive experience as a physician-educator and medical anthropologist schooled in observing and documenting clinical interactions
- Covers all aspects of clinical instruction from imparting medical knowledge to cultivating positive and productive working relationships
- Concrete examples of best practices make it easy for readers to incorporate them into their own teaching and mentoring activities
- Accessibly and entertainingly written, with granular knowledge pearls for both educators and learners
Sanjay Saint