Sarayna S. McGuire, M.D.

What moment or experience in your life influenced your decision to be a clinician?

My mother put herself through nursing school when I was young. She became an emergency nurse at our local community hospital, and I grew up fascinated by her work in the emergency department and started volunteering there with her at a young age. After high school I enlisted in the U.S. Air Force to pay for my college education, knowing I wanted to eventually become a physician. I found myself deployed to the Middle East, and the battlefield injuries I encountered solidified my desire to become an emergency physician.

What motivated you to become a Kern Health Care Delivery Scholar?

I have been greatly impressed by prior Kern Scholar graduates, particularly their research and leadership skills, and have been grateful to have alumni as my own research mentors. Additionally, I have valued collaborating with Kern scientists on projects and learning from them within their specialty areas.

The Kern Health Care Delivery Scholars Program is helping me expand my research through the use of large datasets, advanced automation and artificial intelligence to advance workplace safety and staff wellness.

What is your focus and goal as a scholar within the Mayo Clinic Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery?

My overarching goal is to improve the healthcare environment by developing an innovative process that uses advanced automatization and AI tools for workplace violence reporting through integration with the electronic medical record. This system will leverage the generated data to predict future violent encounters, resulting in better planning and preparation and reducing the number of events and their impact on staff.

Tell us about your mentoring team.

I am fortunate to have a strong, multidisciplinary mentoring team, which includes:

  • Fernanda Bellolio, M.D., M.S., the research chair of Mayo Clinic's Department of Emergency Medicine. As a health sciences researcher, she is dedicated to research methodology, knowledge synthesis and comparative effectiveness. Dr. Bellolio is a Kern Health Care Delivery Scholar alumna. She provided research mentorship throughout my master's program in the Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCaTS) and is continuing to serve as a mentor throughout my time as a Kern Scholar.
  • Barbara A. Barry, Ph.D., a human-computer interaction researcher within the Mayo Clinic Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery. Dr. Barry studies how interaction with AI impacts human intelligence, communication and behavior. As my primary mentor in the center, she helps guide me through large-scale implementation of my proposed AI tool, including mitigation of ethical concerns.
  • Patrick M. Wilson, M.P.H., a principal data science analyst with the Mayo Clinic Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery. He helps provide AI programming mentorship, as he has worked on developing other workplace violence AI tools at Mayo Clinic in Arizona.
  • Casey M. Clements, M.D., Ph.D., an emergency medicine researcher and staff safety officer for Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Dr. Clements has been a long-time mentor within the realm of workplace violence and provided research mentorship throughout my CCaTS master's program. He is continuing to serve as a mentor throughout my time as a Kern Scholar.

How will your research transform or improve patient care or affect public health?

Workplace violence is a pervasive problem affecting the entire healthcare team and leading to physical and psychological harm. Reporting processes are cumbersome and time-consuming, resulting in underreporting. My research is aimed at developing an AI-driven solution to enhance the safety and well-being of staff, addressing this critical issue while reducing administrative burden.

In order to transform patient care, healthcare organizations must first support their staff members who are charged with patient care. This includes protecting them from verbal abuse and physical assault in the workplace.

Why did you choose Mayo Clinic to pursue your career?

During my training at Mayo Clinic, I encountered amazing mentors who helped cultivate my research and clinical interests. Additionally, the collaborative environment and the constant pursuit of quality improvement to better ourselves and our patients is unlike any other institution I have experienced. I knew I wanted to stay after training, and I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to do so.

What are three words that describe you?

Gritty, motivated, resilient.

Outside of work, what is one thing you like to do?

Spend time with my husband and two kids, preferably outdoors in our garden.