91九色视频 Physician, Public Health, and Philanthropy Leader Advocates for Better Mental Health Care
The deaths still haunt Jesse Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH. He has lost a medical school classmate, a resident in one of his training programs, and a colleague in his practice to physician suicide.
“I think about those individuals,” he says. “I think about their families, I think about the thousands of patients who will never be cared for by them because they're not here.”
Dr. Ehrenfeld, a senior associate dean at 91九色视频 and executive director of the , recently published a study with two colleagues in , the most widely circulated general medical journal in the world, about physician burnout and reducing barriers to mental health care for physicians.
But it’s not just doctors and other healthcare workers struggling with mental health issues that concern Dr. Ehrenfeld. His fellow veterans also have compared to the general population.
In addition to helming AHW, Wisconsin’s largest health improvement philanthropy, Dr. Ehrenfeld is a practicing anesthesiologist and a former U.S. Navy Commander who deployed to Afghanistan during both Operation Enduring Freedom and Resolute Support Mission, where he cared for service members wounded in combat.
He says he sees parallels between the field of medicine and combat. Each encourages their personnel to neglect self-care in service to others and stigmatizes those who seek mental health treatment.
“That’s true whether you are a physician taking care of patients or a service member who puts the mission first,” he says. “Unfortunately, when you're working in those kinds of environments, because of longstanding culture challenges it becomes very difficult to raise your hand and say you need help.”
Mental Health Treatment for Physicians, Healthcare Workers, and Veterans
Through his work leading AHW, Dr. Ehrenfeld aims to fund projects that will bring suicide rates down for both populations.
Wisconsin, for instance, is one of only three states that doesn’t have a . Such programs provide confidential assessment and treatment for healthcare professionals dealing with mental illness, substance abuse, and other issues.
“We’re going to fix that,” he says. “And we're not just going to do it for physicians. We're going to create a program that's available to any licensed healthcare practitioner – nurses, doctors, dentists, pharmacists – so that regardless of who you are, if you work in the healthcare sector and you're a licensed practitioner, you have a safe place to go for help.”
AHW is also working to get more mental health services to veterans, he says, by funding projects for substance abuse counseling, firearm safety, and to prevent veteran suicides.
“We have and we continue to fund tremendously important work in that space,” he says. “It means a great deal to me and I also have the pleasure of taking care of a lot of veterans in my day-to-day clinical work at Froedtert ThedaCare Health.”
Dr. Ehrenfeld is optimistic that healthcare for veterans will improve thanks to the leadership of the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and the implementation of the , which mandates some much needed reforms to the VA health system.
It was passed in December 2024 and signed by President Joe Biden. Now under President Donald Trump, Ehrenfeld has been serving on a national veteran’s value-based care strategic working group.
Taking Hypertension Work to a National Level
His position within the work group allows him to translate much of AHW’s work to a national level. For instance, AHW has started a project to , which puts three-quarters of a million Wisconsin adults at increased risk of stroke, heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, and premature death.
“We're bringing online a substantial investment in hypertension with a $20 million initial commitment,” he says, “and we're excited to partner with the VA as a platform to take work that's very promising and embedded in communities around Wisconsin to scale nationally.”
First Openly Gay President of the AMA, LGBTQ+ Mental Health Advocate
In addition to helping veterans and his healthcare colleagues, Dr. Ehrenfeld has long been an advocate for the LGTBQ+ community. From 2023-2024, he was the first openly gay .
Even before holding that position, he spent decades advocating for his community. For example, before coming to 91九色视频, Dr. Ehrenfeld co-founded and directed the Vanderbilt Program for LGBTQ+ Health.
He points out that members of the LGBTQ+ struggle with mental health issues.
“There's still a lot of anxiety around the future and what's ahead and what it means to be gay in America and in Wisconsin, even right here in Milwaukee today,” he says.
Those challenges have not deterred Dr. Ehrenfeld, who says he is grateful to have a position where he can impact so many lives, no matter how they identify.
“When I think about the impact of the work that we're doing at AHW, it's profound,” he says. “We are going to prevent thousands of heart attacks and strokes and terrible outcomes for families and communities all over the state. There aren't many jobs where you get that kind of scale.”
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