Abstract
Authors: Christine R. Stehman, MD (1), Kelly Williamson, MD (2), Erin Dehon, PhD (3), Al’ai Alvarez, MD (4), Manish Garg, MD (5) and Michelle D. Lall, MD (6)
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Introduction: Physician burnout, well-being, and professional fulfillment are deeply intertwined topics that are increasingly recognized as affecting the lives of physicians, health care workers, and patients alike. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) mandates that all residencies address wellness within the context of residency training without providing much guidance on how to do so. Emergency Medicine organizations such as the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American Academy of Emergency Physicians, the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, and the Council of Residency Directors of Emergency Medicine (CORD) suggest that one method to address wellness is in the form of a curriculum. Successfully developing or modifying a curriculum to work for individual residency programs can be a difficult task.
Methods: The CORD Resilience Committee Wellness Curriculum Subcommittee comprised of experts in physician wellness and medical education started by conducted literature searches on terms related to burnout and wellness and searching the internet for documented wellness curricula, models and resources. Using this information and a standard curriculum development process, they created a roadmap for developing (or modifying), initiating, and evaluating a wellness curriculum.
Conclusion: Wellness curricula are not a one-size-fits-all situation. Using the checklist and guidelines in this white paper, readers can individualize existing wellness curricula to help foster physician well-being.
Affiliation:
- University of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria/OSF Healthcare
- Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
- University of Mississippi
- Stanford University
- Weill Cornell Medicine & Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
- Emory University