BackgroundProfessional burnout among medical trainees has been identified as a national concern in need of attention. A significant challenge for residency programs is designing and implementing effective strategies to promote resident wellness and reduce burnout. Emerging evidence highlights the importance of developing organizational changes targeting physician burnout.MethodsTo address this critical need, Harvard South Shore (HSS) Psychiatry Residency Training Program aimed to assess burnout among residents, identify areas for wellness-related growth, and implement strategies for organizational change to reduce burnout and increase wellness. We aligned closely to the Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRE) 2.0 guidelines to systematically approach planning, conducting, and evaluating this quality improvement effort. We developed a wellness action team and assessed burnout using the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI). We also conducted a survey to investigate high opportunity areas for wellness-related growth and using this data we designed and implemented four organizational initiatives to (i) improve residents’ on-call experience, (ii) increase social activities, (iii) support preventative care, and (iv) promote wellness education. We then re-assessed burnout 1 year after implementation and performed two-sample t-tests to compare CBI scores. We additionally gathered and analyzed feedback from residents on the implemented organizational initiatives’ relevance to wellness and their well-being.ResultsThere was an overall clinically meaningful reduction in burnout averaged among all residents that participated. Participants indicated that fitness-oriented activities were most likely to lead to change in wellness habits.ConclusionOur implemented wellness program was resident-led and involved continuous feedback from both residents and leadership. Given that there may be multiple factors that affect resident burnout, future studies involving a control group could help reveal whether our intervention contributed to the change in burnout scores we observed.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12909-019-1756-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Objective With the number of geriatric psychiatry fellows declining from a peak of 106 during 2002–2003 to 48 during 2020–2021, this study aims to investigate characteristics of the geriatric psychiatry training requirement across U.S. psychiatry residency programs and to identify specific factors which may influence residents to pursue geriatric psychiatry subspecialty training. Methods The authors queried the American Medical Association’s Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database Access system to compile a list of program directors from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education sponsored general adult psychiatry residency programs. Program directors were emailed an anonymous multiple-choice survey to ascertain specific characteristics of their program’s geriatric psychiatry training experiences. This study’s primary outcome was the percentage of residents entering geriatric psychiatry fellowship after completion of general psychiatry training. Linear regression analysis determined which variables may be associated with this primary outcome. Results Of 248 surveyed, 60 programs (24%) responded to the survey. Only one of the independent variables revealed a statistically significant association with the percent of residents that became geriatric psychiatry fellows: the number of geriatric psychiatrists at the residents’ home institution ( p =0.002). Conclusions Consistent with previous data, the presence of geriatric psychiatry faculty members is strongly associated with the decision to pursue subspecialty training in geriatric psychiatry.