WELLNESS
Fostering Social Connectedness in Residency Through Residency “Pods”
SAEM PULSE | NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2022
By Suzanne Bentley, MD, MPH and Daniel Lakoff, MD, MBA, MS on behalf of the SAEM Wellness Committee
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Stress is rampant among health care professionals with resident physicians often facing particularly high levels of stress and overall strain on wellness and social connection. A 2022 survey revealed that from 2021 to 2022, there was a major increase in burnout in emergency physicians from 43% to 60%, landing emergency medicine in the #1 most burned-out physician specialty. Residents face unique stressors, some throughout residency and others more unique to individual residency years. Fortunately, there are several strategies and techniques to increase resident support.
Target Social Isolation
One key intervention is to target the social isolation that can occur as
new interns begin residency and find themselves dealing with a magnitude of life changes. Away from their home cities, friends, and other supports, the initial few months of residency are challenging for all, but overwhelming for others. While these initial challenges do improve over time, new and different challenges occur over the course of the residency program. Fortunately, these challenges can often be eased through connectedness and support among coresidents.
Peer Support Systems: Residency Pods
To aid in establishing meaningful, friendly, collegial, mentoring relationships among residents that will assist and support them in navigating the complexity of residency, consider
peer support systems. An effective type of peer support system is the residency “pods” concept. Residency pods are effectively a variation on more common peer support models and similarly offer the benefit of normalizing and encouraging psychologically safe discussions around the shared experience of practicing modern clinical medicine; associated stresses; and possible stigma. Overall, the goal of the residency pod is to foster and enhance social connectedness among colleagues.
Structure of Residency Pods
Residency pods may be structured in a variety of ways at the discretion of the individual residency program and continued on Page 54
