Spotlight on Joy: A Conversation with Arpan Waghray, MD

Chief Executive Officer | Providence's Well Being Trust

A Moral Imperative to Serve

Tell us a little bit about yourself and what brought you to physician/APP well-being.

My name is Arpan Waghray, I’m a psychiatrist, and I serve as CEO of Providence’s Well Being Trust, a national foundation dedicated to advancing the mental, social, and spiritual health for all. The foundation was formed when Providence Health & Services and St. Joseph Health came together in 2016 and made a $100 million investment, plus an additional $30 million to be invested in California from 2017 to 2019, to transform the way care is delivered and to address the greatest mental health needs in its communities.

In this role, I oversee the foundation’s strategy to drive measurable improvement in mental health and well-being of communities within the Providence footprint of Alaska, California, Montana, Oregon, New Mexico, Texas, and Washington.

Physician and APP well-being has been an important focus for many years, but the experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic brought its urgency into much sharper view as the U.S. healthcare community experienced devastating losses, including clinicians who died by suicide.

Those experiences underscored the immense burden clinicians carry. The pandemic didn’t create this crisis, but it amplified a longstanding problem. Nationally, physicians and APPs were disproportionately affected. Even before COVID-19, we were already losing the equivalent of an entire medical school class to suicide each year.

Supporting the well-being of the people who care for patients is a moral imperative. It is foundational to the health of our workforce and the quality and compassion of the care we deliver.

Conviction into Purpose

Has there been a figure or experience in your life that compelled you to become a part of the well-being conversation?

As a psychiatrist, I’ve long believed that caring well for patients requires us to care just as intentionally for the people who deliver that care. That conviction was shaped in large part by Maureen Bisognano, president emerita and senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), who has been a formative mentor in my career. Her guidance, and the IHI’s Joy in Work Framework, which focuses on restoring joy to the healthcare workforce, deeply influenced how I think about supporting the well-being of physicians, APPs, and all healthcare workers.

No One Cares Alone

What is one project or initiative you’ve been a part of that has made a positive impact in your healthcare circles? What were some of the challenges you had to overcome?

One project that has made a meaningful impact is No One Cares Alone (NOCA), Providence’s mental wellness initiative supporting caregivers throughout their well-being journey. The program emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it became clear that existing resources weren’t enough to meet the overwhelming need.

The NOCA menu of resources offers seamless, personalized support through an intelligent digital front door, ensuring caregivers can access the help they prefer. It also recognizes that many health care workers struggle in silence, providing proactive outreach and tailored tools to reach caregivers who may not seek support on their own.

NOCA aims to create a seamless, thoughtful ecosystem of care where every caregiver feels supported, never isolated, and always able to access the right level of help at the right moment. The model has since been translated into a playbook so health systems nationwide can implement similar approaches.

A major challenge is that many clinicians are not accustomed to seeking help for themselves. Our culture emphasizes self-reliance, making it difficult for physicians and APPs to prioritize their own needs.

Yet delivering exceptional, compassionate care requires caring for our own well-being too. We are whole people caring for whole people, and acknowledging that is essential to sustaining the workforce.

We Are All Connected

What sentiment would you like to leave for those looking to enter the conversation on well-being?

Any meaningful conversation about physician and APP well-being must begin with the recognition that caring for those who care for others is a moral imperative.

For anyone stepping into this work, you don’t need all the answers. What matters most is listening deeply and acting with intention. Supporting the well-being of physicians and APPs means continuously reducing stigma, improving access to support, and creating environments where clinicians, and all health care workers, feel connected and supported.

Approaching this work with humility, empathy, and a belief that everyone deserves to feel supported helps build a culture where no one cares alone.

Thank you to Arpan Waghray, MD for participating in the Spotlight on Joy series! Dr. Waghray is an active Board Member of the Coalition for Physician & APP Well-Being as of June 2026. Dr. Waghray is also an active participant in the Coalition's Research and Development Committee, focused on pushing organizational approaches to physician and APP well-being forward through innovation and collaboration.