Rachel Schwartz, PhD | Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

Assistant Adjunct Professor

M_Anesthesia

Dr. Rachel Schwartz is a mixed-methods Communication Scientist and Health Services Researcher focused on system-level interventions for improving clinician and biomedical scientist retention and well-being, optimizing interprofessional team communication, efficiency of practice, and patient safety. She has expertise in implementation science and focuses on developing evidence-based innovations that facilitate alignment across stakeholders.

She is the lead editor of Emotion in the Clinical Encounter (McGraw Hill, 2021), a medical education textbook that provides clinicians with tools for navigating psychosocial aspects of the medical encounter.

Additional areas of interest include improving mentoring & sponsorship in academic medicine, exploring the unique professional needs of physician-scientists, and providing research mentorship on projects focusing on global health and underserved populations.

Publications

Seven Empathy Myths: Correcting Misconceptions About a Complex Construct

Social and Personality Psychology Compass

Alison Jane Martingano, Sara Konrath, Danielle Blanch-Hartigan, Mark H. Davis, Judith A. Hall, Mollie A. Ruben, Justin J. Sanders, Rachel Schwartz

What Is Clinical Empathy in Anesthesiology? Perspectives From Practicing Anesthesiologists

A & A Practice

Stosic, Morgan D.; Ruben, Mollie A.; Weaver, Adele E.; Blanch-Hartigan, Danielle; Sanders, Justin J.; Schwartz, Rachel; Jeong, Sunny; Lam, Ryan; Hall, Judith A.; Duong, Fred; Meyer, Elaine C.; Waisel, David; Blum, Richard H.

Patient Perspectives and Concerns Regarding Cataract Surgery and Cataract Surgery Sedation: A Qualitative Study.

Clinical ophthalmology (Auckland, N.Z.)

Molina L, Lyang N, Schwartz R, Parikh N, Ramanathan S, Huang AJ, Chen CL

Clinical team flow in the perioperative environment: a qualitative single-centre study.

British journal of anaesthesia

Coss NA, Sinskey JL, van den Hout J, Chang JM, Legrand M, Schwartz R

Comparing GPT-4 and Human Researchers in Health Care Data Analysis: Qualitative Description Study.

Journal of medical Internet research

Li KD, Fernandez AM, Schwartz R, Rios N, Carlisle MN, Amend GM, Patel HV, Breyer BN

Looking Across the Drape: A Novel Quality Improvement Approach to Understanding Surgeon and Anesthesiologist Burnout.

Annals of surgery

Sinskey JL, Schwartz R, Boscardin CK, Chang JM, Kumar SB, Lebares CC

Building Authentic Connection in the Patient-Physician Relationship.

Journal of primary care & community health

Fuehrer S, Weil A, Osterberg LG, Zulman DM, Meunier MR, Schwartz R

Does Sponsorship Promote Equity in Career Advancement in Academic Medicine? A Scoping Review.

Journal of general internal medicine

Schwartz R, Williams MF, Feldman MD

Using Their Words to Shape Curricula: Targeted Well-Being Programming for Graduate Medical Education Trainees.

Academic psychiatry : the journal of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the Association for Academic Psychiatry

Anand U, Schwartz R, Stonnington CM

On the proliferation of the empathy concept in healthcare and medical education research.

Patient education and counseling

Hall JA, Duong F, Schwartz R

Developing a feedback-rich culture in academic medicine: the effect of coaching and 360-feedback on physician leadership.

BMC medical education

Schwartz R, Weimer-Elder B, Wilkins E, Deka D, Wong S, Dang BK, Brown R, Kline M, Kwan L

Retaining Providers with Women's Health Expertise: Decreased Provider Loss Among VHA Women's Health Faculty Development Program Attendees.

Journal of general internal medicine

Farkas AH, Merriam S, Frayne S, Hardman L, Schwartz R, Kolehmainen C

Reply to "Empathic communication: The premise of inclusive care for historically excluded populations".

Cancer

Schwartz R, Blanch-Hartigan D, Valbuena G, Weil A, Dubey M, Catzen HZ, Hall JA, Sanders JJ

Physicians, emotion, and the clinical encounter: A survey of physicians' experiences.

Patient education and counseling

Schwartz R, Osterberg LG, Hall JA

Reference-free discovery of nuclear SNPs permits accurate, sensitive identification of Carya (hickory) species and hybrids.

Applications in plant sciences

Literman RA, Ott BM, Wen J, Grauke LJ, Schwartz RS, Handy SM

Empathy, an important but problematic concept.

The Journal of social psychology

Hall JA, Schwartz R

The effect of a relationship-centered communication program on patient experience and provider wellness.

Patient education and counseling

Altamirano J, Kline M, Schwartz R, Fassiotto M, Maldonado Y, Weimer-Elder B

Emotion in the Clinical Encounter

Schwartz, Rachel
Hall, Judith A.
Osterberg, Lars G.

Using ethnographic methods to classify the human experience in medicine: a case study of the presence ontology.

Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA

Maitra A, Kamdar MR, Zulman DM, Haverfield MC, Brown-Johnson C, Schwartz R, Israni ST, Verghese A, Musen MA

What is empathy? Oncology patient perspectives on empathic clinician behaviors.

Cancer

Sanders JJ, Dubey M, Hall JA, Catzen HZ, Blanch-Hartigan D, Schwartz R

Physician empathy according to physicians: A multi-specialty qualitative analysis.

Patient education and counseling

Schwartz R, Dubey M, Blanch-Hartigan D, Sanders JJ, Hall JA

Harnessing the Chaplain's Capacity to Identify Unmet Palliative Needs of Vulnerable Older Adults in the Emergency Department.

Journal of palliative care

Hamill Howard E, Schwartz R, Feldstein B, Grudzen M, Klein L, Piderman KM, Wang D

What is clinical empathy? Perspectives of community members, university students, cancer patients, and physicians.

Patient education and counseling

Hall JA, Schwartz R, Duong F, Niu Y, Dubey M, DeSteno D, Sanders JJ

Retaining VA Women's Health Primary Care Providers: Work Setting Matters.

Journal of general internal medicine

Schwartz R, Frayne SM, Friedman S, Romodan Y, Berg E, Haskell SG, Shaw JG

How do laypeople define empathy?

The Journal of social psychology

Hall JA, Schwartz R, Duong F

Addressing Postpandemic Clinician Mental Health : A Narrative Review and Conceptual Framework.

Annals of internal medicine

Schwartz R, Sinskey JL, Anand U, Margolis RD

Can Patient-Provider Interpersonal Interventions Achieve the Quadruple Aim of Healthcare? A Systematic Review.

Journal of general internal medicine

Haverfield MC, Tierney A, Schwartz R, Bass MB, Brown-Johnson C, Zionts DL, Safaeinili N, Fischer M, Shaw JG, Thadaney S, Piccininni G, Lorenz KA, Asch SM, Verghese A, Zulman DM

Practices to Foster Physician Presence and Connection With Patients in the Clinical Encounter.

JAMA

Zulman DM, Haverfield MC, Shaw JG, Brown-Johnson CG, Schwartz R, Tierney AA, Zionts DL, Safaeinili N, Fischer M, Thadaney Israni S, Asch SM, Verghese A

Developing institutional infrastructure for physician wellness: qualitative Insights from VA physicians.

BMC health services research

Schwartz R, Shanafelt TD, Gimmler C, Osterberg L

What is clinician presence? A qualitative interview study comparing physician and non-physician insights about practices of human connection.

BMJ open

Brown-Johnson C, Schwartz R, Maitra A, Haverfield MC, Tierney A, Shaw JG, Zionts DL, Safaeinili N, Thadaney Israni S, Verghese A, Zulman DM

Neurologist Strategies for Optimizing the Parkinson's Disease Clinical Encounter.

Journal of geriatric psychiatry and neurology

Schwartz R, Trivedi R, Gray C, Lorenz KA, Zulman D

Transdisciplinary Strategies for Physician Wellness: Qualitative Insights from Diverse Fields.

Journal of general internal medicine

Schwartz R, Haverfield MC, Brown-Johnson C, Maitra A, Tierney A, Bharadwaj S, Shaw JG, Azimpour F, Thadaney Israni S, Verghese A, Zulman DM

"It's a disease of families": Neurologists' insights on how to improve communication and quality of life for families of Parkinson's disease patients.

Chronic illness

Schwartz R, Zulman D, Gray C, Goldstein MK, Trivedi R