A Culture of Wellness

Both Wellbeing and Diversity are priorities for physicians in the Internal Medicine Residency. To take the best care of our patients we know that we must also practice self-care. Our comprehensive physician wellbeing program is grant-supported and encompasses a wide range of programming, needs assessments, didactics, and fun. The Physician Wellbeing, Diversity and Inclusion Committee includes residents from all PGY levels, Transitional and Preliminary Medicine interns, core teaching faculty, and private hospitalists with a goal of supporting wellbeing for all. Because each individual’s wellbeing needs are different we offer an array of measures including Social, Fitness, and Service sub-committees. In addition to our longitudinal and event-based programming, we have a robust social media presence designed to keep us connected- day or night, on- or off-campus, holidays and weekdays - we are a team.

As part of a new, longitudinal Wellbeing Curriculum, incoming residents will create a “Wellness H&P” with refreshers throughout their three years. Residents on elective months get one Wednesday afternoon as a “wellness half-day” (a non Academic Half Day afternoon) to catch up on life, doctors appointments, etc. We utilize the Mayo Clinic-developed MyWellbeingIndex, an app that tracks wellness and burnout over time. All rotation evaluations have a question to monitor resident wellness. Incoming residents are assigned resident “buddies” and can participate in our Peer Mentoring Program. Residents receive didactic education on fatigue management, burnout, and other wellness topics. Physicians experiencing additional stress, burnout, or other mental health issues are supported through Wellbeing SAFE Zone individuals and resources to professionals if needed. Our department is actively working to destigmatize mental health.

All residents also receive implicit bias training with ongoing cultural competency training. Equity is a focus in all program policies as well as recruitment. Residents may also attend the Graduate Medical Education Diversity Grand Rounds for additional education from national leaders on Diversity.

We recently rolled out an LGBTQ+ and Addiction Medicine curriculum so as to diversify the experience and knowledge of our residents so that they can educate themselves on ways to be advocates for their patients in the future.