Dean Emeritus Steven R. Smith Published

California Western faculty are invested in legal research that can solve human and societal problems. In the case of Dean and Professor Emeritus Steven R. Smith, that investment has continued well past his retirement from teaching in 2018. Professor Smith continues to publish prolifically, including his most recent work, “Managing clinician burnout: Challenges and opportunities,” which he co-wrote with his long-time collaborator Dr. Joseph S. Sanfilippo, and renowned psychologist Dr. Morgan T. Sammons.

The article, published this August in OBG Management, details the pervasive burnout clinicians are experiencing throughout the country, as well as the contributing factors, consequences for patients, legal ramifications, and strategies to address the problem. 

Professor Smith and his co-authors discovered that one of the most significant causes of clinician burnout are electronic health records: “some clinicians spend as much as 49% of working time doing clerical work.” They also found that burnout leads to increased clinical error, which increases the probability of malpractice claims, which, in turn, increase burnout, creating a vicious cycle, leading to poor results for patients and early retirement for physicians. 

In the article, Professor Smith, who is a health and mental health law expert, also explores questions of liability in medical malpractice cases that may involve burnout. In a case study, he argues that a medical facility or system might be liable in a malpractice case if a clinician had been showing signs of burnout and nothing was done to address it. The authors conclude that it behooves medical facilities to invest in resources for clinicians to prevent burnout and address it when it arises. 

When asked about his passion for research, Dean Smith commented that “it gives me a chance to learn something new, to think through tough problems, and even an opportunity to change my mind.” We are grateful for his continued contributions, changing his mind and ours for the better.