MedEdPORTAL (Mar 2015)
OHSU Resiliency Skills Elective
Abstract
Abstract Resiliency is a key component of preserving empathy and preventing burnout among physicians. Teaching students how to build effective resiliency practices around their busy lives early in medical education may help to fortify their resiliency before they enter into the clinical stages of their education and their early years of practice. The OHSU Resiliency Skills Elective was designed to provide an experiential tasting menu of resiliency practices to broaden the resiliency skills students have available to them, while also strengthening their emotional intelligence and social capital through the creation of a safe and supportive small peer group. All three components to this course (resiliency practices, social support, and faculty role modeling) play an equally important role in developing student resiliency; each component works to reinforce and strengthen the others. Participating students experiment with a wide range of resiliency practices, including mindful awareness practices, breathing techniques, listening skills, emotional regulation skills, and positivity practices. The course is conducted over an eight-week period where students meet for 2.5 hours once weekly. The first 30 minutes consists of a shared meal, and the next 2 hours are reserved for the class itself, including an initial check-in and time for reflections on the experiential exercises. This curriculum is intended to be a fully functional guide to conducting this course. It is written largely in script format (with in-text notations labeled for instructors) and is a week-by-week course outline. The exercises and content were designed to be accessible and appropriate for individuals without a background in mindfulness or positive psychology. They should be offered in a supportive setting with students who have opted in and experienced faculty who have been through similar experiences themselves in faculty experiential learning settings.
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