People Profile – Dr. Jeffrey Breton

Jeffrey Breton, MD, (PGY 4; Neurological Surgery) was recently elected as one of the newest members to MedStar Health’s Graduate Medical Education Committee (GMEC), the team of residents and administrators that oversees the system’s many residency and fellowship programs.

Dr. Breton hopes to use his GMEC role to help fellow residents maximize valuable education time while respecting their needs as humans and providing an equitable and fulfilling workplace.

“There are many competing pressures on residents to be productive clinically and academically, with the expectation of somehow simultaneously mastering a specialty, possibly securing a fellowship, and trying to live your life outside of the hospital,” Dr. Breton explains.

He says his co-residents—whom he describes as “a source of knowledge, support, occasional commiseration, and friendship”—have been an immense help in managing these pressures. He also credits the neurosurgery faculty with taking a keen interest in their learners’ education and well-being and helping them succeed.

To incoming residents, Dr. Breton suggests a practical solution for juggling competing priorities: “Organization is paramount. With inspiration from one of the senior residents, I developed a color-coded organizational system to make sure I knew which consults I needed to call, drains I needed to pull, orders I needed to place, and consults to see and staff.” With a system like this in place, he says he’s been able focus more of his energy on learning medicine and taking care of patients.

Outside of the hospital, Dr. Breton tries to set boundaries and make space for the activities he enjoys most, like reading; hiking; following his favorite baseball teams, the Boston Red Sox and San Francisco Giants; honing his musical talents on the guitar, piano, and ukulele; and spending time with his co-residents, friends, and fiancée.

A fellow at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), a part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Dr. Breton often thinks about how healthcare might change in the future. CMMI develops and implements models for new and innovative forms of healthcare delivery. “These alternative payment models revise the incentive structure with the goal of improving quality or decreasing cost while keeping an eye towards addressing health inequities,” he explains. “In the future, I expect that there will be a larger role for quality and outcome-based metrics for public and private payers than there is today.”