Core elements

Customized services to fit your schedule

The Mayo Clinic Physician Health Center offers healthcare services to people serving in academic medical centers, private practices or large healthcare systems from across the country. We offer customized assessments that focus on your specific medical conditions. And we have the ability to test essential job functions in a confidential and highly advanced environment.

Efficient assessment of medical conditions that may jeopardize the ability to care for patients

Physicians with medical needs are seen by a Mayo Clinic doctor who draws on the full expertise of Mayo Clinic. Our exams include:

  • Collecting medical information prior to appointments.
  • Streamlining the itinerary.
  • Prescheduling labs and tests.
  • Expediting subspecialty evaluations.
  • Providing a visit summary to employers if requested.
  • Making work recommendations as needed.
A Mayo Clinic preventive medicine doctor of the Physician Health Center

Helping physicians return to practice

Mayo Clinic welcomes practicing physicians with a specific medical need or performance issue, including those temporarily restricted from practice or on leave. The most common reasons physicians visit the center are:

  • To undergo assessment of an active medical condition that may affect the safe return to practice.
  • To optimize the care of their medical condition(s) and their ability to practice.
  • To gain specialized training in resilience, time management and burnout prevention.

Physicians who visit the Mayo Clinic Physician Health Center consult with a senior physician who specializes in evaluating and treating other physicians.

What employers and supervisors need to consider

More often than not, physicians either do not seek regular medical care, or seek it through brief contact with colleagues outside of the traditional doctor-patient model.

Detecting adverse effects of a medical condition on a physician's work performance may require very difficult and candid conversations. Nonetheless, these conversations are critical in preventing safety issues to patients or co-workers in the healthcare environment. Referring physicians to colleagues practicing in the same facility or health system as the affected physician may:

  • Create awkward conflicts.
  • Risk confidentiality breaches.
  • Open the possibility of complex occupational medicine assessments being handled by physicians without expertise in occupational medicine.
  • Put the health system at risk for not seeking outside and independent evaluations.
  • Overlooking medical conditions or behaviors due to evaluations being provided by colleagues.

The Mayo Clinic Physician Health Center provides a reliable and unbiased resource that assesses safety to practice and establish a return-to-work plan.

Jan. 27, 2024