Dr. Les Schwab

Dr. Les Schwab is a primary care physician with 40 years of experience in medical practice and healthcare organizational leadership. He received his M.D. from Stanford University and was an internal medicine resident at Cambridge Hospital. He has a B.A. in Biology from Harvard University. 

Dr. Schwab served as the Chief Medical Officer at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, a 600-physician multispecialty practice in eastern Massachusetts.

Dr. Schwab is a certified coach and focuses mainly on performance improvement and leadership development. He has extensive experience helping physicians cope with burnout stress, be more organized, improve teamwork, develop collegial relationships, and establish efficient strategies for career development. For medical leaders, he provides a particular focus on developing relational skills for effective strategy deployment and performance management.

He is a Harnisch Scholar at the Institute of Coaching in Boston, serving as the principal investigator for a randomized controlled study of a coaching intervention to reduce physician burnout. This study established the value of brief coaching to reduce burnout and increase physicians’ psychological well-being, engagement, and job satisfaction. The study has added to the evidence basis for coaching in healthcare.

As the host of the podcast MedPEP - the Medical Professionals Empowerment Program, Dr. Schwab addresses issues regarding physician burnout. Each episode features a different expert with specific solutions to various burnout problems.