POSTER

Residency, Stress, and Burnout: A Curriculum for Fourth-Year Medical Students on Physician Well-Being

Author: John Kunzer MD
Indiana University School of Medicine

Objective: To develop a curriculum for fourth-year medical students on physician self-care as many students are likely to experience stress and burnout during their future residencies.

Methods: An interactive curriculum on physician self-care was developed to aid students in identifying ways to improve their well-being during residency. The curriculum uses selected readings and case vignettes to prompt self-reflection and group discussion on physician well-being. Students also complete an exercise on balancing personal and professional commitments. The curriculum was given to thirty five fourth-year medical students. Students completed post-workshop evaluations.

Results: All of the participants stated they had a more positive opinion of physician well-being and self-care following the workshop and they would recommend the workshop to a friend. Additionally, 94% felt they could better identify factors affecting their own well-being, 89% were more likely to engage in self-care activities during residency, 89% felt better prepared to assist a colleague experiencing physical or emotional ill-health, and 86% felt better prepared to address their own physical or emotional ill-health during residency.

Conclusions: Medical students have a positive response to instruction on physician self-care and may be more likely to engage in wellness activities during residency following that instruction. Physician self-care can be effectively taught by allowing students to self-discover key points through the use of interactive instructional strategies

Conclusions: A variety of faculty development methods allowed participation of 81 community preceptors over 2 years. Participants consistently rated the workshops highly and student evaluations of preceptors improved.