This episode was recorded live at the 2025 Joy & Wholeness Summit in Asheville, North Carolina.
Dr. Xi (Sisi) Hu is a Co-Founder and the Chief Wellbeing Economist of Atalan Tech, a mission-oriented startup focused on using machine learning to predict and prevent clinician burnout and turnover. She is also a Fellow of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School and Research Economist at the National Bureau of Economic Research, with a research focus on labor issues. She specializes in modeling disruption and risks in labor markets, and is passionate about protecting the wellbeing of workers in the healthcare industry. Dr. Hu received a National Science Foundation grant to study COVID’s impact on healthcare workers. Her expertise is in risk science where her work has received media attention from around the world including the World Economic Forum, Sky News, the UN, among others.
Dr. Heather Schmidt is a family medicine physician in Fond du Lac, WI, who trained at Midwestern University and completed her residency at Exempla/St.Joseph’s Hospital. She became the Medical Director of Health and Wellness at Agnesian HealthCare in 2013 and transitioned to the System Medical Director of Healthy Work and Well-being for SSM Health in 2020. Dr. Schmidt has collaborated with various partners to integrate well-being into initiatives such as leadership development and employee safety and has been instrumental in implementing the SSM Health Care for Caregivers peer support system and Schwartz Rounds. She continues her medical practice with a focus on weight management and mental health and enjoys spending time with her husband and daughters, skiing and boating in Wisconsin.
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