Letting Go and Letting Residents Write Their Own Prescription for Wellness
Physician burnout and depression is well documented and has been shown to vary with level of training throughout a physician's medical career with burnout prevalence as high as 60% for residents. We initially thought that physician well-being was simply the absence of burnout, but it failed to acknowledge the preventative measures that could be utilized to impede the development of burnout. Developing an infrastructure within a residency program that promotes well-being is necessary to provide the skills needed by residents to prevent burnout during their career as clinicians.
During this session, we will provide a roadmap for creating a resident driven well-being committee that is flexible to accommodate both robust and newly started well-being initiatives. First, participants will be tasked with identifying those in their program that could be potential well-being champions and create a committee structure to organize these individuals. We will then present the evolution of our internal medicine resident wellness committee by identifying existing strengths as a launching point, addressing the barriers we encountered, and highlighting our ability to adapt to a virtual format. Subsequently, participants will reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of current well-being initiatives within their program and how this committee could build upon pre-existing initiatives. Finally, participants will have an opportunity to explore the well-being toolkit and we will review our current resident wellness committee structure as well as the tools we have utilized this year.
During this session, we will provide a roadmap for creating a resident driven well-being committee that is flexible to accommodate both robust and newly started well-being initiatives. First, participants will be tasked with identifying those in their program that could be potential well-being champions and create a committee structure to organize these individuals. We will then present the evolution of our internal medicine resident wellness committee by identifying existing strengths as a launching point, addressing the barriers we encountered, and highlighting our ability to adapt to a virtual format. Subsequently, participants will reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of current well-being initiatives within their program and how this committee could build upon pre-existing initiatives. Finally, participants will have an opportunity to explore the well-being toolkit and we will review our current resident wellness committee structure as well as the tools we have utilized this year.