Individually Focused Well-Being Interventions

Abstract

While a system-level approach is necessary to achieve a significant positive impact on the well-being of medical students and graduate medical education (GME) trainees, individuals share a concurrent responsibility to commit to intentional and strategic self-care that promotes their own well-being. The goals of this chapter are to emphasize the importance of a shared responsibility framework using organizational and individual strategies to promote well-being, introduce an expanded framework for strategic self-care, review the data for many individual-focused strategies that can be utilized by learners when practicing strategic self-care, and provide guidance for the creative integration of individual-focused practices and wellness strategies into programmatic structures and longitudinal curricula. When training programs and schools support well-being by both improving system-level drivers of burnout and facilitating opportunities for strategic self-care, medical students and GME trainees feel valued and encouraged to better care for themselves and the populations they serve.