As ‘The Pitt’ Spotlights Physician Mental Health, Advocates Push Breen Act Funding

As medical organizations, lawmakers, advocates — and even the lead actor from “The Pitt” — laud the reauthorization of the Lorna Breen Act through fiscal year 2030, they’re also urging millions of dollars to boost funding for its programs.

The legislation, named for the late emergency medicine physician Lorna Breen, MD, focuses on mental health infrastructure for physicians and other healthcare professionals. Breen was just 49 years old when she died by suicide early in the pandemic after treating COVID-19 patients and contracting the disease herself.

In a recent letter to lawmakers, dozens of medical organizations said they are “deeply grateful” that Congress reaffirmed the value of programs established through the Lorna Breen Act by reauthorizing the legislation, but they added the next step is ensuring no less than $45 million in funding in fiscal year 2027.

The Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation, which was founded before and separately from the Lorna Breen Act, also has called for this funding, suggesting $35 million for two programs through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to improve practice and training environments and $10 million for a technical assistance program put forth by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) at the CDC.

J. Corey Feist, co-founder and CEO of the foundation and Breen’s brother-in-law, contended that, while the federal government spends billions of dollars on healthcare workforce creation, the Lorna Breen Act represents the “only funding that goes towards helping to retain the workforce.”

He noted that priorities going forward will continue to be grants administered by HRSA that are focused on addressing the root cause of burnout among healthcare workers, as well as expanding the reach and impact of the Impact Wellbeing Guide from NIOSH, which the foundation helped to develop.

To date, HRSA grant programs have supported more than 250,000 health workers across 24 states, and NIOSH has provided more than 35,000 healthcare leaders with training materials aimed at addressing operational factors and burdens that drive workforce burnout, according to the foundation.

The issue is one that is especially taxing, persistent, and relevant. HRSA projects a shortage of some 500,000 healthcare workers by 2038, Feist noted. MedPage Today has previously reported on national surveying that found physicians’ stress and anxiety had recently returned to pandemic levels.

The TV show “The Pitt” has addressed mental health among healthcare workers throughout its second season, which showed emergency medicine physician Dr. Michael Robinavitch (known as Dr. Robby), played by actor Noah Wyle, struggling with suicidality.

Playing Dr. Robby, Wyle has become a staunch supporter of the Lorna Breen Act in real life, and the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation is listed among partner resources of “The Pitt.”

“We think it’s critically important, what the show is doing, the impact that it’s having,” Feist told MedPage Today. “It is helping to change the conversation within the house of medicine as well as among patients. And it’s really giving individuals, for the first time, a real front row view into what actually happens in healthcare, whether that’s violence and threats, or whether that’s just the toll that the work takes on the workforce.”

“I just could not be more grateful for the show and for Noah Wyle, in particular, for elevating this issue and continuing to explore the awkward and the uncomfortable parts,” he added.

Feist stressed the importance of full funding for programs under the Lorna Breen Act, which he noted was developed as a “first step in a full staircase of health policy that we need to create to support health workers.”

Additionally, “[w]e need to go beyond this work and get deeper into these conversations, so that we can address that huge 500,000 health worker gap, so that we have a thriving healthcare workforce,” he said.