Valuing Wellness Across the Faculty
By the end of next week, King’s College Circle will be buzzing with activity. Alumni weekend takes over campus — and, for the first time, we’re opening our doors alongside the rest of the university to welcome alumni to the Faculty of Medicine.
Not only will we highlight our outstanding 2018 Dean’s Alumni Award winners, but the Naylor Student Commons will be the focus of family-friendly activities. And we’ve got a full house registered for an Inside the Issue panel discussion tied to our upcoming alumni magazine on healthcare’s readiness for legal cannabis.
I wanted to draw your attention specifically to an initiative I am very proud to see offered: an accredited Continuing Professional Development event focused on wellness for healthcare professionals.
Open to alumni, residents, fellows and faculty, the half-day workshop on June 2 will include a plenary talk by surgeon, scientist and educator Carol-anne Moulton titled “Peeking behind the curtain: surgical judgment beyond cognition,” as well as a panel on personal narratives around physician health and wellbeing. A moderated debate will then take on the question of burnout: is it a public health crisis that requires systemic intervention?
I can’t overstate how important the issue of wellness is across the Faculty of Medicine.
For MD students and residents, we have invested in wellness resources through confidential counselling and a range of available supports, but we have ongoing work to do to ensure our learners know what they have access to and feel confident in seeking out these supports. Trainees are especially vulnerable to stigma when they’re struggling, particularly when front-line healthcare culture continues to value the ability to “soldier on”. We’ve all fought through fatigue or found our minds wandering from the task at hand. When does that begin to erode one’s long-term wellbeing? None of this is simple for any health professional against the backdrop of budgetary pressures and tight job markets.
Yet we know chronic stress and burnout are in no way physician-only issues. No matter our field, we all wear multiple hats — caregivers, partners, parents and more. How do we find ways to bring our whole selves to our work without feeling like we have nothing left at the end of the day?
There is much we already know: get more sleep, eat better food and get your body moving. All of this makes eminent sense on an individual level. But much work remains to be done at the systemic level if we want to see our professions truly thrive.
As we’ve heard in recent consultations around our next strategic academic plan, we have to be much more deliberate in our actions to foster a culture where health and wellbeing are integrated in everything we do. We need to strengthen our structures and processes within the Faculty of Medicine to ensure everyone feels safe, supported, welcomed and accommodated for their diverse health and wellness needs. We all need to see our own wellness as essential to our wellbeing. To steal a line from the powerful new awareness campaign from our colleagues at CAMH: mental health is health.
You’ll hear more about our commitment to advance health and wellbeing across the Faculty in the weeks and months ahead. In the meantime, I encourage you to take time to reflect on your own physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. Cultivate the relationships and activities that bring joy and nourishment to your lives.
Trevor Young
Dean, Faculty of Medicine
Vice Provost, Relations with Health Care Institutions