Washington Health System - Yoga and Picnic 2021

WHS Family Medicine Residency Program has had an active Wellness Program since 2017. Activities have included enhanced Balint groups, Yoga, Tai Chi and other exercises classes, mindfulness training, reflective writing classes, special class nights and a yearly resident retreat. Residents are involved in planning many of the activities, specifically the class nights and yearly retreat.

   

Results/Outcome Survey
1. What was the general understanding of the purpose of the project/program by participants?
WHS Family Medicine Residency Program has had an active Wellness Program since 2017. Activities have included enhanced Balint groups, Yoga, Tai Chi and other exercises classes, mindfulness training, reflective writing classes, special class nights and a yearly resident retreat. Residents are involved in planning many of the activities, specifically the class nights and yearly retreat. Funds from this grant were utilized for the exercise classes and a reflective writing exercise during the resident retreat. These are scheduled at the end of our afternoon lecture series to give the residents some time to unwind after a long day of learning, allowing for time to focus on themselves and their health.


2. During the project/program, what tangible tools or strategies were demonstrated or taught (i.e, coping skills for wellness and life balance)?
Residents participated in two Yoga classes, demonstrating basic and intermediate yoga poses. We also held a focused Wellness session during our resident retreat. We began the retreat with each resident personally assessing their different levels of well-being (emotional, occupational, environmental, etc). We then went over some statistics to realize just how prevalent burnout is in medicine and early Physician Burnout begins even as early as medical school. This provided the ground work to let us know we are not alone in feeling burnout, but there are steps that we can take to improve this. Wellness needs to not only be an individual initiative, but a system initiative as well. We spent time on an activity where each resident then shared their two core values that meant the most to them in their lives. Their classmates then gave examples of how they’ve seen them live out their core values and it was a very empowering experience. We also did a narrative writing session on COVID. Residents were given the simple prompt of writing anything they wanted related to COVID. The responses were powerful and eye opening for the group. We also worked on a root cause analysis together to help us find drivers of burnout. We ended with a brain storming session on the curriculum we would create this year for further tools including conflict management, time management, mindfulness and meditation, appreciative inquiry. Overall, the retreat was a great success. 

3. What word(s) best describes how you feel when you are experiencing stress or well-being imbalance?
Residents note feeling overwhelmed, deflated, anxious, and depressed. When stress they also note poor concentration, poor sleep and significant fatigue.

4. What suggestions do you have to increase the probability of success for the project/program for other institutions?

Having protected time to allow residents to concentrate on both their mental and physical health has been very well received by our residents. Things that helped us take our classes from good to great: Reminding people ahead of time to wear comfy clothes (scrubs are surprisingly not great for yoga), keeping the lights dimmed and diffusing essential oils throughout the room.


5. What do you intend to do, upon returning to work, that you learned and practiced during the activity, that will improve your response to stressful situations?
Breathing techniques were taught during the yoga classes. Many residents had never attempted yoga prior to these sessions. Using these techniques at home helps alleviate stress, muscle aches and more, resulting in improved mental health.