250 - Perception of Wellness Curriculum Efficacy Among Four Medical Specialties, Residents verses Program Directors

Poster Number: 250
Publication Number: 250.333

Nathan A. Williams, John R. Oishei Children's Hospital, Buffalo, NY, United States; Brian Wrotniak, John R. Oishei Children's Hospital, Buffalo, NY, United States; Heather Territo, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, United States

Background: There are many work-related factors for residents in training that contribute to poor mental health and physician burnout. These include high stress, social isolation, lack of autonomy, dependence on the EMR, among others. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has required a Wellness Curriculum be instituted by all residency programs. The goal of these programs is to support resident physicians by addressing physical, mental, educational, social, financial, and lifestyle wellness to maintain lifelong habits of personal wellbeing. Results of these efforts have yielded mixed results in terms of improving long-term burnout.

Objective: The Purpose of this study was to investigate perceptions between residents and program directors (PD) on what components should be included in a wellness curriculum and identify perceived barriers to participate in the curriculum between the two.

Design/Methods: For this cross-sectional study, four programs were enrolled: Internal medicine (IM), Emergency Medicine (EM), Pediatrics (Peds) and Internal medicine/Pediatrics (IM/Peds).
Each resident and program director (including associate program directors) received a confidential survey administered by Redcap, an online survey management program. The survey was emailed to 195 residents, 4 program directors and 12 associate program directors.
 

Results:
Responses from 39 residents (23% EM, 59% Peds, 8% IM and 10% IM/Peds) and 4 PDs (50% EM, 25% Peds, and 25% IM/Peds) were received from November 2021 to January 2022. Wellness components most commonly reported as important included: protected time for appointments (57% of residents found important vs 25% PDs) and resident feedback regarding schedules and curriculum (30% residents vs 75% PDs).

94% of residents reported fatigue from work as a barrier to engage in wellness activity vs 25% of PDs. 100% of PDs identified fear of asking for help as a barrier vs 28% of residents. 20% of residents reported current wellness curriculum to be sufficient, vs 75% of PD. When identifying resident and PD perceptions of wellness we found no statistically significant difference between residents and PDs.
 
Conclusion(s): Physician wellness is a key component to graduate medical education. We identified differences in perceptions between residents and PD’s on components  important to physician wellness, as well as perceived barriers to participate in wellness activities. Further research would assist in determining what specific interventions would be the most crucial to promoting resident wellness.