More women than men entered medical school in the United States for the first time in 2017. Will this generation also set new trends in parenting during their training? One study suggests that 40% of female residents plan to have a child while in residency.1
Can our graduate medical education system withstand even a modest increase in the number of resident parents? Can your hospital?
In March 2017, our ALiEM Wellness Think Tank launched an ambitious initiative to try to identify the prevalence rate of U.S. emergency medicine (EM) resident burnout across the country. No study to date had been done to assess this. Amazingly we got a response from over 1,500 confirmed U.S. EM residents from 193 residency programs purely through our social media, email listservs, and Wellness Think Tank outreach efforts. We measured burnout using the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS). This 22-item MBI-HSS is the most common, validated tool used to measure burnout in healthcare professionals. It assesses 3 subscale domains:
A combination of high EE, high DP, and/or low PA scores are correlated with burnout.1,2 This post reviews some of the highlights from our study, High Prevalence of Burnout among Emergency Medicine Residents across the US, which was recently accepted by Annals of Emergency Medicine and published online.3
Burnout is a well-known syndrome characterized by poor self-care, dehumanization, exhaustion, and reduced effectiveness. The study of wellness and resilience among emergency medicine (EM) providers and trainees has recently blossomed, largely as a consequence of recent tragedies of physician suicide, provider distress, and an increased awareness the impact burnout has on both personal and professional domains. While there are ongoing discussions on practices to best address burnout, methods have focused on promoting resilience, mindfulness, and provider engagement.1
On behalf of the ALiEM Wellness Think Tank (WTT), we are thrilled to announce our partnership again with Essentials of Emergency Medicine (EEM). On May 13, 2019 during the WTT Resident Wellness Day (an EEM preday event featuring acclaimed author Dr. James Dahle of White Coat Investor fame), we also will launch the first-ever Wellness Innovation Plenary Session focusing on residency-level initiatives. This is your chance, as a resident, to give an oral presentation at a national conference. Deadline: January 7, 2019.
Many residencies and departments in medicine have started or are thinking about starting local wellness newsletters and handouts. In an effort to help reduce redundancy and facilitate more global information-sharing , the resident-driven ALiEM Wellness Think Tank has decided to launch our own email-based newsletter series. Periodically, we will send out a short article discussing personal wellness, tips for maintaining wellness in your professional life, and ideas to promote wellness within a residency program. Sign up below, and feel free to share with your colleagues. If you have ideas and suggestions for content, please feel free to contact us.
The Wellness Think Tank created a podcast with wellness expert Dr. Shahina Braganza from the Gold Coast in Australia. Facilitated by Dr. Annahieta “AK” Kalantari and joined by EM residents Dr. Alecia Gende and Dr. Adrienne Taren, the conversation covers a broad range of topics including the concepts behind Emotional Contagion, Dr. Braganza’s published “oneED” program1, and the challenges of adopting wellness initiatives in the ED. We present the podcast and highlights below.
It’s almost the end of your sixth shift in a row. You are trying to finish up notes when you hear an overhead page. You find yourself in the middle of a pediatric code that has a poor outcome and you have 5 minutes to spend with the family before being pulled into another patient’s room. You have no time to address the difficult case you just encountered. As an emergency physician, this may happen on a daily basis but some cases hit closer to home. How do you recover after these shifts, and how do you prepare for the next difficult patient encounter? Members of the ALiEM Wellness Think Tank recently spoke with performance psychologist Dr. Jason Brooks about how to mend these wounds and improve performance in the workplace. We provide a summary of our conversation and link to the podcast.