Penn Highlands Family Residency -Paint N Dip April 29, 2022

We enjoyed our POMA sponsored resident retreat on Friday, April 29th by having individual Charcuterie boards made locally by a company called Graze Together and some homemade dips brought by several of the residents. We then participated in a guided crafting class held by Re.invent.ed, a local crafting company from a neighboring town, with our hosts Allison and Lindsey....

Participants were given the choice between 8 different crafts they could make, then Allison and Lindsey walked us through how to make our creations come to life. This activity consisted of using our individual, unique creativity to produce our final product. During the crafting, we were also able to talk as a group about what each of us bring to the residency program that makes our program successful. Some of the examples of things I and my co-residents feel we bring to the residency program include:  leadership, empathy, diverse interests that help other think outside the box, and our one M.D. resident brings her medical prospective to a mostly D.O. program. We also discussed our own ways of coping with residency and achieving work life balance. By doing this we provided each other new ways to destress and achieve a better work life balance.

This event consisted of a lot of laughter and a relaxing atmosphere allowing us to destress from our daily clinic duties. We were able to enjoy the day with our GME department and new, incoming program director Dr. Kevin Wilson. Thank you for sponsoring this event for us. Everyone involved rated it as a 10/10 for a very fun and enjoyable event.

Results/Outcome Survey
1. What was the general understanding of the purpose of the project/program by participants?
The general understanding of the purpose of the project/program by participants was the benefit of having different personalities in a team and how beneficial our unique qualities can help the team succeed, both in and out of medicine.

2. During the project/program, what tangible tools or strategies were demonstrated or taught (i.e, coping skills for wellness and life balance)?
During the project/program, the tangible tools and strategies that were demonstrated was communication, attention to detail, and using your creativity to accomplish your goal. By sharing our own unique ways of coping we were able to hopefully provide each other with new examples to sue in the future.

3. What word(s) best describes how you feel when you are experiencing stress or well-being imbalance?
The words that best describe how we feel when experiencing stress of well-being imbalance is burn out, overwhelmed, feeling unorganized, feeling tired, and having a bad mood.

4. What suggestions do you have to increase the probability of success for the project/program for other institutions?
Suggestions we have to increase the probability of success for the project/program for other residency programs is to have more wellness activities, incorporate breaks for residents when they start to feel overwhelmed, and decrease responsibilities when it gets overwhelming.

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?
To improve our responses to future stressful situations, we intend to use our communication skills, teamwork skills, take breaks from work, and reflect on what’s important to break down the stressor.