StayCurrent Forum: Resident Wellness

ACGME and many residency programs now must address resident wellness.

Even the 80-hour weekly work cap is very demanding for residents.

Residents see people dying on a semi-regular basis and perform complex tasks while learning many new things at once, which can cause burnout.

Wellness means different things to different people; some benefit from yoga and meditation, while others (e.g., a seasoned orthopedic surgeon) may not want those approaches.

Interns and residents often neglect basic self-care (nutrition, hydration, bathroom breaks) during 8- to 16-hour shifts, which negatively affects their well-being outside the hospital.

Trevor's wellness program focused on nutrition, sleep, mindfulness, and other strategies to help all residents.

Trevor's personal post-residency routine includes 90 minutes of productivity on days off: 30 minutes for fitness, 30 minutes for household tasks, and 30 minutes for intellectual work (e.g., reading journal articles), after which he relaxes guilt-free.

Trevor meal-preps and brings a large tumbler of ice water flavored with Mio to shifts to stay nourished and hydrated, which helps him leave shifts with more energy than he had in residency.

Introspection about what causes burnout (on-shift factors, home factors, controllable vs. uncontrollable) is important for residents.

Trevor found that delaying documentation until the end of a shift caused him to leave two hours late, cutting into personal time; he now uses dictation software (Dragon) and plans to hire a scribe to minimize documentation burden.

When job-hunting, residents should apply to multiple places and negotiate for things that matter to them (e.g., time off, scribes, dictation software); one of Trevor's friends negotiated five weeks of vacation versus the standard four at the same salary.

If residents identify feasible changes that could reduce burnout, they should communicate with program leadership; if changes are not possible, discussing concerns with colleagues can help.