Wellness curriculum in geriatric medicine fellowship

Background Physician burnout is prevalent and plays a significant role in wellbeing Fellowship can be a high-risk time for burnout and there is an inverse relationship between resiliency and burnout Modifying practice and increasing support can be effective at reducing burnout Our objective was to develop and incorporate a curriculum, the Wellness, Empathy and Philanthropy (WEP) program, to give Geriatric Medicine Fellows skills to identify markers of wellness, enhance resiliency and reduce burnout Methods The curriculum included wellness education, activities and interventions blended with core Graduate Medical Education and Geriatrics Medicine topics led by Geriatric Fellowship faculty Fellows anonymously completed a pre-program Abbreviated Maslach Burnout Inventory (aMBI), Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) and met 1-2 times monthly Topics included culture, work/life balance, fatigue, sleep deprivation, empathy, burnout prevention, resilience, philanthropy, coping and communication in interactive formats Sessions incorporated fieldtrips, mindfulness and meditation, philanthropic events, guided de-briefing, gratitude and writing exercises Feedback and joy sharing were included in each session The aMBI and BRS were repeated at the end of the academic year after completion of the curriculum for comparison Results The WEP Program took place in the 2019-20 academic year N=3, participants were women, 2/3 completed Internal Medicine and 1/3 Family Medicine residency Pre-program resiliency average score was 3 61 (normal), post program resiliency score 3 39 (normal) Pre and post program aMBI results showed low burnout Average emotional exhaustion scores decreased and personal accomplishment scores decreased Feedback was positive and the program was felt to be valuable Recommendations were to continue the WEP curriculum Conclusions We successfully developed and incorporated a wellness curriculum for Geriatrics Fellows In this small group, we demonstrated the feasibility/acceptability of this program Markers of resiliency, burnout, exhaustion and personal accomplishment give a foundation for comparison as we use feedback to improve the program The decrease in resiliency and sense of personal accomplishment may be due to the COVID19 pandemic during the program The pandemic increased physician burnout globally We hope that creating a foundation of burnout recognition can help physicians in training protect wellness in their futures