Bio
Al’ai Alvarez, MD FACEP FAAEM (@alvarezzzy) is a national leader and educator on wellness, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Clinical Associate Professor, Stanford Emergency Medicine (EM)
• Director of Well-Being, Stanford EM
• Co-lead, the Human Potential Team, Stanford EM
• Fellowship Director, Physician Wellness Fellowship, Stanford EM
• Chair, Physician Wellness Forum, Stanford WellMD/WellPhD
• Director, Physician Resource Network (PRN) Support Program, Stanford WellMD/WellPhD [Stanford’s peer-to-peer support for faculty and trainees]
His work focuses on humanizing physician roles as individuals and teams by harnessing the individual human potential in the context of high-performance teams. His long-term interest is to optimize the interconnectedness between Medical Education, Process Improvement (Quality and Clinical Operations), Recruitment (Diversity), and Well-being (Inclusion) through human-centered design.
Dr. Alvarez is a faculty fellow at the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign (2021-2022), exploring the role of mindfulness in high-stress environments. He is also the co-director and organizer for the High-Performance Resuscitation Teams Summit (https://bit.ly/HPRT2023) in collaboration with Mayo Clinic and the Mission Critical Teams Institute. HPRT aims to develop a collaborative inquiry among teams from various disciplines, including healthcare, aerospace, sports, military, special operations forces, fire rescue, and other high-performing/elite teams.
Dr. Alvarez was the assistant/associate residency program director (APD) at the Stanford Emergency Medicine Residency Program [2016-2021], focusing on the intersectionality of residency well-being with performance improvement on patient experience, quality and patient safety, diversity, equity and inclusion, and medical education. Among his roles, he served as the second-year class APD and the Medicine Without Walls (MWOW) Line Director for the Stanford Emergency Medicine ACCEL Program (https://emed.stanford.edu/residency/ACCEL.html).
Nationally, Dr. Alvarez serves on committees on physician well-being and diversity, equity, and inclusion in medical education. He is the co-chair of the Council of EM Residency Directors (CORD) Wellness Leadership Mini-Fellowship, a mentor at the Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Faculty Incubator, and co-founded and co-chair of the largest national diversity mentoring program in EM through the joint American College of Emergency Physician (ACEP) ’s Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity (DIHE) and the Emergency Medicine Residents Association (EMRA) ’s Diversity Mentorship Initiative.
Dr. Alvarez gives several grand rounds and national/international conference lectures and workshops on relevant topics in self-compassion, physician well-being, and high-performance teams, including increasing leadership capacity and mentorship to enhance diversity and inclusion [#doctorsarehumanstoo|#whatdoctorslooklike].
Dr. Alvarez received the 2019 ACEP DIHE Distance and Impact Award, the 2020 Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) Academy for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Medicine (ADIEM) Outstanding Academician Award, the 2020 CORD Academy for Scholarship in Education in EM Academy Member Award on Teaching and Evaluation, and the 2022 John Levin Leadership Award at Stanford Health Care.
