Twitter: @WellnessTT

 

What is the ALiEM Wellness Think Tank?

We are a group of emergency physicians from across North America interested in tackling issues of wellness, resiliency, and burnout starting from the ground up – with residents! Read what we have done in the past few years:

What’s next?

As of July 1, 2020, the Wellness Think Tank is no longer accepting new members. We are regrouping to determine the most effective means to impact change to support physician wellness and growth.

2019-20 Executive Summary

Mission Statement

The mission of the Wellness Think Tank is to create a diverse community of residents who collaborate, innovate, and advocate for physician wellness from the ground up. This grassroots initiative tackles resident issues such as preventing suicide and burnout, enhancing resilience, and promoting overall quality of life. Our ultimate goal is to catalyze innovative and positive change at the individual, institutional, local, national, and international levels.

“Change won’t come from the top. Change will come from mobilized grassroots.”

 

-Barack Obama

 

How do we accomplish this?

  • Encourage collaboration, support, and meaningful discussion among residents from across North America
  • Connect residents to well-known experts in wellness, both inside and outside of the field of medicine
  • Facilitate the development and implementation of innovative, resident-driven interventions targeting common sources of stress and burnout in emergency medicine
  • Educate residents on principles of resilience, positive psychology, mindfulness, and other mental health promoting skills
  • Mentor and assist residents in scholarly activities, development and implementation of initiatives, and leadership at institutional, regional, and national levels

Our Platform: Slack

Slack, despite its informal name, is an incredibly powerful digital communication platform that has completely revolutionized how the ALiEM Editorial Board works and is the primary means of communication for many major companies (including eBay, the Wall Street Journal, and even NASA). It has also served as the successful platform for our other high-profile communities (Faculty Incubator, Chief Resident Incubator). It has been described as “team communication for the 21st century” and efficiently transforms how teams work. This will be how we will be communicating, sharing, and working together in a private Wellness Think Tank account.

Executive Leadership Team

Simiao Li-Sauerwine, MD MS

Chief Academic Officer, Wellness Think Tank 2019-20
Assistant Program Director
Department of Emergency Medicine
The Ohio State University
Twitter


Sarah Mott, MD

Special Events Officer, Wellness Think Tank 2019-20
Staff Emergency Physician
Emergency Care Consultants
Minnesota
Twitter


Katie Rebillot, DO

Chief Operating Officer, Wellness Think Tank 2019-20
Assistant Professor
Department of Emergency Medicine
LA County-University Southern California
Twitter


Sneha Shah, MD

Chief Development Officer, Wellness Think Tank 2019-20
Resident
Department of Emergency Medicine
Maimonides Medical Center


 

Core Mentors and Senior Advisors

  • A’lai Alvarez, MD (Associate Program Director, Stanford EM Residency)
  • Nicole Battaglioli, MD (2016-19 WTT Chief Operating Officer)
  • Arlene Chung, MD (2016-19 WTT Chief Strategy Officer)
  • AK Kalantari, DO (Associate Program Director, Penn State EM Residency)
  • Michelle Lin, MD (ALiEM Founder)
  • Matt Melamed, MD (Lead investigator of 2017 National EM Burnout Survey)

What do we have planned for 2019-20?

Members-only perks

  • Receive free books and participate in book clubs
  • Access a national support network in creating local wellness initiatives
  • Participate as investigators and authors in national wellness research

Service to the medical community

  • Creating of a national resident wellness curriculum on ALiEMU
  • Host a pre-day national resident wellness event at Essentials of EM 2020
  • Compilation of existing EM resident national wellness initiatives
  • Wellness newsletter
  • Podcasts [Soundcloud for WTT only episodes, iTunes for all of ALiEM episodes]
  • Publication of relevant pearls and resources on social media

Why limit the WTT to 30 emergency medicine resident members?

To ensure that each member feels connected to the WTT community, it is important that we limit participants. Each resident member will be paired with a mentor and be part of a smaller group working toward completion of a specific goal. Keeping the group small will help foster a greater sense of connection and help ensure members are engaged and active throughout the year.

Prerequisites and Expectations

Preference will be given to the following:

  1. Emergency medicine residents able to attend Essentials of EM’s preday event
  2. Have demonstrated an interest in promoting wellness and resiliency either while in medical school or residency through participation in committees, research, development, implementation of new initiatives, and/or otherwise championing these topics.

Expectations

  • Identify and work toward completion of specific project(s) with support of a WTT advisor
  • Interact and collaborate with other WTT members using the Slack platform
  • Participate in Google Hangouts
  • Monthly time commitment of approximately 10 hours (may vary depending on project involvement, deadlines, etc.)
  • Challenge the status quo, share personal experiences, and continue to work toward advancing the WTT mission!

Application Process

Please submit the following using our form [insert link] below

  1. Curriculum vitae
  2. WTT project proposal (e.g. research, curriculum, events, etc.) – we are looking for innovative ideas and welcome creativity
  3. Letter of recommendation from faculty or wellness advisor
  4. Letter of good academic standing from EM program director
  • Membership is FREE!

I have more questions…how can I get in touch?

Sponsors / Partners


We would like to express sincere gratitude to our generous primary sponsor, US Acute Care Solutions, who share our passion about physician wellness. Their support makes it possible to keep the WTT membership free and for us to develop meaningful projects.


We also wish to thank Essentials of Emergency Medicine for co-hosting our resident wellness preday even at their national conference

 

 

References

  1. Li-Sauerwine S, Rebillot K, Melamed M, Addo N, Lin M. A 2-Question Summative Score Correlates with the Maslach Burnout Inventory. West J Emerg Med. 2020;21(3):610-617. Published 2020 Apr 21. doi:10.5811/westjem.2020.2.45139
  2. Arnold J, Tango J, Walker I, et al. An Evidence-based, Longitudinal Curriculum for Resident Physician Wellness: The 2017 Resident Wellness Consensus Summit. West J Emerg Med. 2018;19(2):337-341. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29560063.
  3. Zaver F, Battaglioli N, Denq W, et al. Identifying Gaps and Launching Resident Wellness Initiatives: The 2017 Resident Wellness Consensus Summit. West J Emerg Med. 2018;19(2):342-345. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29560064.
  4. Lin M, Battaglioli N, Melamed M, Mott S, Chung A, Robinson D. High Prevalence of Burnout Among US Emergency Medicine Residents: Results From the 2017 National Emergency Medicine Wellness Survey. Ann Emerg Med. March 2019. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30879701.
  5. Battaglioli N, Ankel F, Doty C, Chung A, Lin M. Executive Summary from the 2017 Emergency Medicine Resident Wellness Consensus Summit. West J Emerg Med. 2018;19(2):332-336. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29560062.
  6. Chung A, Smart J, Zdradzinski M, et al. Educator Toolkits on Second Victim Syndrome, Mindfulness and Meditation, and Positive Psychology: The 2017 Resident Wellness Consensus Summit. West J Emerg Med. 2018;19(2):327-331. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29560061.

 

Michelle Lin, MD
ALiEM Founder and CEO
Professor and Digital Innovation Lab Director
Department of Emergency Medicine
University of California, San Francisco
Michelle Lin, MD

@M_Lin

Professor of Emerg Med at UCSF-Zuckerberg SF General. ALiEM Founder @aliemteam #PostitPearls at https://t.co/50EapJORCa Bio: https://t.co/7v7cgJqNEn
Michelle Lin, MD