Wellness Council

The Yale New Haven Hospital Wellness Council is committed to championing resident and fellow well being at the institution in order to foster a healthy working and learning community. The Mission of the Wellness Council is to encourage the personal and professional growth, the physical and mental well-being, and the individual and collective welfare of residents and fellows at the Yale New Haven Hospital. Through tailored programs and institutional advocacy, we hope to create a culture that supports healthy lifestyle choices as a sustainable value of our community.

The most recent key articles addressing physician and physician trainee wellness and well being:

• Physician Well-being and the Regenerative Power of Caring. April 2018.
• Charter on Physician Well-being. April 2018.
• Physician Burnout—A Leading Indicator of Health System Performance? November 2017.

It is not uncommon that trainees experience events that result in guilt, shame and emotional distress in their day to day work. Some examples include, but are not limited to, microaggressions, discrimination, sexual harassment, workplace hostility and other concerns outside of the workplace. We started a Peer Support program to assist our trainees with some of these issues. A description of the program is as follows:

A. Residents with some training in providing peer support will be available to other residents and fellows who have had a difficult experience that they wish to talk to about with someone outside their usual circle.

a. Patient care related stressors

b. Microaggressions and harassment from colleagues and superiors

c. Personal life difficulties

B. Is meant to be one-on-one support

C. Can take the form of email, text message, phone call, or in-person

D. A list of trained Friends will be made available on MedHub under the Wellness folder in the resources tab.

a. A distressed resident can email any person on the list to set up an interaction of their choice.

b. Expected response is within 24 hours

E. If any “Friend” is concerned about a resident who contacts them, they can relay their concerns to Dr. Rosemarie Fisher, to be dealt with appropriately

F. “Friends” will meet quarterly (perhaps conference call/WebEx meeting) to discuss similar stressors they have encountered and look for similarities that may be systemic and changeable.

Every year we will look to recruit new “Friends” as our old “Friends” leave the institution. Please let us know if you are interested in learning more about this program.