Introduction: Professionalism is a core competency of medical education. It impacts one's ability to generate rapport with patients, foster patient satisfaction, and enhance the overall well-being of the medical professional. Unprofessional attitudes among medical students have been associated with higher rates of career dissatisfaction and burnout. A group of faculty and medical students at our institution have developed a series of peer facilitated modules addressing a set of common themes relevant to medical professionalism: professionalism in the clinical setting, professional electronic communication, teamwork and community, and work-life integration. Methods: Student discussions on professionalism were facilitated by senior medical students. Using a 5-point Likert scale, electronic pre-and postsurveys assessed the impact of the workshop on first-year medical students' understanding of various professionalism topics. Results: Seventy-seven percent of first-year medical students (n = 131) felt the modules contributed to their learning. Pre-and postsurveys showed significant improvements in understanding of and comfort with the majority of topics discussed. Students felt that their knowledge improved as well. Narrative comments expressed approval of the modules and suggested they addressed unmet needs in the medical curriculum. Discussion: These modules were successfully incorporated into the first-year medical school curriculum and led to improved student understanding and comfort around these topics. Senior medical student facilitators also found the experience useful in their own career development. Although these modules were designed for medical students, they may also be useful for other professional students (e.g., dental, nursing, etc.) or for interprofessional educational experiences.

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The Lawrence Family Medicine residency was created in the 1990s as the first community health center- sponsored residency with the goal of reducing health disparities. Balint groups have been a part of the wellbeing and behavioral health curriculum for many years. The population of Lawrence, MA is primarily a resource-poor, Latinx, immigrant population. In March of 2020, the Covid pandemic highlighted health disparities in this community. The spike in cases in 2020 also impacted the residency community with overwhelming needs of sick and dying patients in newly created, resident and faculty-run Covid units. Our early ignorance about transmission, prophylaxis, treatment and even prognosis made the work incredibly difficult. George Floyd’s murder added the additional stress of social unrest in response to a persistent pattern of racism and unequal justice. To help process trauma residents felt working in terrifying conditions, often in medically futile situations with patients who spent their last hours without family at the bedside, we turned to biweekly Balint groups and added additional resident support sessions on the off weeks. Residents seamlessly adopted videoconferencing as the Balint platform, allowing them to attend a group session without risk of infection. The residents, being a diverse group, were able to offer multiple perspectives and process the traumatic issues of disproportionate suffering for their patients, uncertainty and frustration of the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic racism. We found a video Balint group permitted residents to explore their divergent experiences and feelings and offer support to each other in a very uncertain time.