Lehigh Valley Health Network Emergency Medicine Residency - Ropes Course - 06.07.23

As EM residents, we often feel separate from the rest of the residency programs within our hospital, just given the location of our department, and given the size of our residency have some difficulty bringing everyone together, so we were interested in having an event together for team building and community enriching events. We are embedded in a brand new...... 

,,,,,, emergency room, while a beautiful facility, the design segregates the pods from one another and even separates the doctors from nursing and support staff with separate dictation boxes making general camaraderie a bit difficult.  Within individual classes, it is rare that we all have time off together to meet for social activities and bonding due to our shift commitments. The rope course program was centered around team building, mental and physical exercises to foster leadership, communication, collaboration, problem solving, and emotional intelligence.

The instructors for the ropes course went over safety rules first and explained the course was “challenge by choice”, if you are not comfortable attempting a section of the course, you acknowledge that and allow yourself not to advance too quickly. They encouraged us to try different sections multiple times and advanced through the increasingly challenging sections in a progressive manner thereby allowing all participants the chance to gain confidence as the course gradually became more difficult. We also had a great time cheering each other on through each obstacle.

Emergency Medicine continues to experience multiple challenges and when we experience wellness imbalance as residents – I would say many of us feel burnt out, exhausted physically and mentally – it is crucial to encourage group activities where we feel supported. I would recommend other institutions to focus on an activity which their specific residents might enjoy to facilitate attendance and engagement. Many of the residents who attended are excited to go back to the course and those who were unable to attend are interested in trying next time.