Grit, Gratitude, Grace, and Guidance: Moving Academic Medicine From Crisis to Transformation

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis within the United States, faculty in academic medicine have experienced serious workplace and personal challenges while also exploring unique solutions and innovations in response to these challenges. Despite the global pandemic, social inequality and unrest, and uncertainty about the future, 3 hopeful themes that bind faculty together have emerged: grit, gratitude, and grace. This commentary describes how these qualities are in fact a culmination of ongoing work within academic medicine. While there is still a long way to go, this work is paving a path forward that is leading faculty to have more control over their professional lives. Indeed, these faculty efforts can be enhanced through shared governance, in which faculty participate more fully in the decision making at their institutions. To create thoughtful and enduring solutions, institutional leadership need to collaborate with faculty and provide guidance focused on improving well-being among faculty. This commentary is a call to action that describes how working together through shared purpose and engagement can harness the power of crisis as a catalyst for change and transformation that leads to the betterment of not just faculty, but academic medicine overall.