WELLNESS
SAEM PULSE | NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2022
The Role of the Resident Wellness Chief in Contributing to the WellBeing of Residents
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By Megan Anderson, DO Emergency medicine (EM) residency is a fast-paced, adrenaline-filled marathon of hands-on learning where residents are forced to pivot minute-to-minute between the highs and lows of patient care. It is no wonder topics such as well-being, burnout, and mindfulness have been brought to the forefront of discussion among EM residency programs, especially during COVID-19. Given this, general, residency is a time where areas of wellness such as mental and physical health are placed on the back burner due to time and energy limitations. Ironically, it is optimized wellness itself that can improve energy
levels, sleep hygiene, confidence, mood, and overall career satisfaction. As physicians, we strive to improve the health of our patients; however, we cannot effectively take care of others if we are not first taking care of ourselves. It is for these reasons that interventions from a wellness chief are essential to an EM residency program. “Wellness” is defined differently by everyone. While some residents find wellness in physical activity or being outdoors, other residents may discover wellness from reading a book for pleasure in a quiet space. Traditionally, there are seven components of well-
being: 1.) emotional, 2.) physical, 3.) intellectual, 4.) spiritual, 5.) social, 6.) environmental, and 7.) financial. As the wellness chief of the Medical College of Wisconsin EM residency program, I wanted to discover what “wellness” meant to each of our residents so that I would have a more effective impact on resident well-being. To assess components of wellness that our residents valued most, I created a survey for residents to complete at the beginning of the academic year. The survey was voluntary, and most responses were submitted by our PGY1 residents, followed by PGY-3, then
