Rachel Schwartz, PhD, BA

Assistant Adjunct Professor
Anesthesia
[email protected]

Dr. Rachel Schwartz is a mixed-methods Communication Scientist and Health Services Researcher focused on system-level interventions for improving clinician retention and well-being, optimizing interprofessional team communication, efficiency of practice, and patient safety.

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: 

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

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

Empathy present and future.

The Journal of social psychology

Hall JA, Schwartz R

Changing the Game for Hand Hygiene Conversations.

Hospital pediatrics

Schwartz R, Sharek PJ

Unaltered emotional experience in Parkinson's disease: Pupillometry and behavioral evidence.

Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology

Schwartz R, Rothermich K, Kotz SA, Pell MD

When emotion and expression diverge: The social costs of Parkinson's disease.

Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology

Schwartz R, Pell MD