Creating a Culture of Wellness: Conversations, Curriculum, Concrete Resources, and Control

Abstract

Burnout and depression across the career life cycle of healthcare providers are increasing at alarming rates. We need to devote our resources and efforts to bolster the next generation of healthcare providers who have the capacity for resiliency and well-being--the antidote to burnout and depression. A handful of organizations have implemented general wellness programs to combat burnout but there are surprisingly few documented, well-researched interventions to build resiliency. Wellness provides an alternative framework to approach the epidemic rates of burnout and depersonalization within the healthcare profession. In this article we describe our rationale for developing a culture of wellness among primary care physicians along with the specific activities and initiatives for creating a culture of wellness throughout medical educational training. Examples of the four core components of a residency wellness program-concrete resources, positive conversations, curriculum, and control-are described with regard to our Family Medicine Residency. A brief description of early efforts to empirically examine the impact of the wellness initiative across systemwide residency programs (Family Medicine and other programs) is described.

Positive Education: Innovation in Educational Interventions Based on Positive Psychology

“…The following year, Place and Talen (2013) wrote an intervention among medical residency students seeking to develop resilience and well-being for the reduction of burnout and depression rates among them. The program is entitled Residency Wellness Program and has four main components: concrete resources, positive conversations, curriculum, and control.…”

“…The program is entitled Residency Wellness Program and has four main components: concrete resources, positive conversations, curriculum, and control. The authors report that education in positive psychology is effective against burnout and should be included in training programs, emphasizing the strengths, resilience, and protective factors among students (Place & Talen, 2013).…”

“…Three were directed at college students (Bridges et al, 2012;Place and Talen, 2013;Duan et al, 2014), only two exclusively meant for teachers (Aldenmyr et al, 2012. ) and school leaders (Waters & Stokes, 2015).…”

“…) and school leaders (Waters & Stokes, 2015). In relation to the outlines, it was observed that five were case studies (Aldenmyr, 2012;Baum et al, 2014;Rhodes & Spiers, 2013;White & Waters, 2015;Waters & Stokes, 2015), three presented other qualitative outlines (Bridges et al, 2012;Niehues et al, 2013;Place & Talen, 2013), three with quasiexperimental outline (Duan et al, 2014;Proctor et al;, Tomyn et al, 2015, two studies presented randomization (Leventhal, 2015;Madden et al, 2011) and a longitudinal study (Shoshani & Steinmetz, 2014).…”

Development of an Emergency Medicine Wellness Curriculum

“…Despite the prevalence of burnout and its significant implications, there remain few published residency wellness curricula and no multicenter residency curricular collaborations; outcome assessments of published curricula are also very limited . In response to this gap of wellness education in residency training, the authors developed the first formal, sustainable EM wellness curriculum.…”