ACGME AWARE Well-Being Podcasts

In this second interview with Dr. Sydney Ey, Professor of Psychiatry and Associate Director of the Resident and Faculty Wellness Program at the Oregon Health and Science University Medical School, she is joined by Dr. Stuart Slavin, ACGME Senior Scholar for Well-Being. In this interview, Dr. Slavin and Dr. Ey explore how imposter phenomenon manifests itself among residents and faculty, how it relates to perfectionism and depression, and discuss the multiple impacts impostor phenomenon has on their well-being. They also discuss the roots of impostor phenomenon and why it seems endemic to the experience of residency, sharing some of the strategies programs have used for combatting the hold it has over a person's self-perceptions and the expectations they have of themselves.

In this interview with Dr. Srijan Sen, Frances and Kenneth Eisenberg Professor of Depression and Neurosciences and Associate Chair for Research and Research Faculty Development at the University of Michigan's School of Medicine, we discuss his research into the factors that contribute to burnout and depression among medical students and residents.  Dr. Sen led a ten-year, multi-institutional study of medical interns to determine how genetic factors are involved in moderating the relationship between stress and depression. In this interview, Dr. Sen talks about what inspired him to pioneer research into well-being among medical interns, what his findings suggest for how programs can better prepare residents for the stressors they face during clinical training--and his hopes for how residents learn to cultivate the supports they need to thrive, not just survive, during residency.

ACGME Senior Scholar for Well-Being Stuart Slavin, MD returns to share strategies for developing the metacognitive skills needed to help us address our individual negative mindsets and improve our well-being. Dr. Slavin argues that cultivating these skills can help residents challenge the entrenched “automatic thinking” that so readily develops as a defense to the stressors of the clinical learning environment.

Practicing physicians have one of the most stressful jobs in the U.S., making them particularly susceptible to burnout.  The impacts of prolonged burnout have enormous implications for physicians and their families, as well as their patients and the health care system itself. In this first of three interviews with Sydney Ey, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry at the Oregon Health and Science University School of Medicine, we explore that institution's successful Resident and Faculty Wellness and Peer Support programs, which she helped establish. Dr. Ey discusses the specific strategies she found most effective in helping physicians grapple with their experience of stress and build their resilience. Dr. Ey's experiences provide insights for Program Directors and others in the GME community seeking to establish their own systems of support for physicians and others working in the clinical learning environment. Dr. Ey discusses some common obstacles, as well as key facilitators, to the development of such programs that helped pave the way for the OHSU programs' success.

In this third interview, Dr. Sydney Ey, Professor of Psychiatry at the Oregon Health and Science University Medical School and Dr. Stuart Slavin, ACGME Senior Scholar for Well-Being, discuss how faculty teaching in residency programs can support not only residents they work with, but each other. In a health care system and culture that often privileges efficiency and detachment over self-care and the expression of emotion, learning how to identify those in need of support –and providing effective support--can be difficult. Dr. Ey and Dr. Slavin discuss a range of strategies—some eminently practical, others ground-breakingly disruptive-for challenging some of the pervasive mindsets and the culture of silence that tend to perpetuate themselves in clinical learning environments. .

In this second interview, Dr. Srijan Sen, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan School of Medicine, and Dr. Stuart Slavin, ACGME Senior Scholar for Well-Being, discuss the individual and situational factors that contribute to burnout and depression among medical students and residents. They discuss some of the strategies residents develop to cope with burnout--both the healthy and less healthy--and explore what programs and institutions can do to mitigate the effects of stress among residents.  .

In this follow-up podcast to episode six, we continue to talk with Jo Shapiro, MD, founder of the Brigham and Women's Center for Professionalism and Peer Support, to explore what hospitals can do to establish similar programs at their own institutions. Dr. Shapiro shares insights from her experience of building the Center's program, discussing its design and critical elements for success in order to make an impact on enhancing clinician well-being. 

In this interview with Dr. Jo Shapiro, Associate Professor of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery at Harvard Medical School and founder of the Brigham and Women's Center for Professionalism and Peer support, we discuss what hospitals can do to establish similar programs at their own institutions. Dr. Shapiro shares insights from her experience of building the Center's program and discusses the evidence behind its design, highlighting those elements essential to developing a program that can make a tangible impact in reducing clinician stress and enhancing well-being. 

With the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, physicians and other clinicians are suddenly having to process vast amounts of new information on how to manage patient care as well as safely protect themselves. In the midst of the pandemic, attending to their own mental health and well-being is vital--but wading through yet an additional set of resources may seem overwhelming. In this 30-minute podcast, we interview Stuart Slavin, MD, ACGME's Senior Scholar for Well-being, who provides a synthesis and distillation of well-being strategies for residents and other clinicians specific to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Dr Slavin has pulled from resources including psychology and psychiatry, peer support programming, the military and VA system, and literature for support of first responders to mass casualty events.

Dr. Stuart Slavin, ACGME Senior Scholar for Well-Being, returns to discuss how the transition from medical school to residency and from residency/fellowship to practice--already a vulnerable time for physicians--has been impacted by COVID-19. Using William Bridges' tripartite model of transitions as a framework, Dr. Gravel Sullivan and Dr. Slavin explore the implications of the many changes brought about by the pandemic on well-being--particularly for physicians undergoing transitions. They discuss measures individuals and programs can take to mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic on the well-being of incoming and graduating residents.

In this episode, Stuart Slavin, MD, MEd, ACGME's Senior Scholar for Well-Being, discusses the role of Psychological First Aid (PFA) in providing support for individuals who have suffered some kind of trauma or other devastating event. We discuss the relevance of the approach to supporting to clinicians, patients and others managing the stressors of the pandemic, as well as the specific strategies used in PFA, which was collaboratively developed by a coalition of international military and non-governmental organizations as a response to victims of war, natural disasters and other traumatic events.

In this interview, ACGME Senior Scholar for Well-Being, Stuart Slavin, MD, explores the experience of impostor phenomenon in clinical settings. Dr. Slavin focuses in particular on how medical students transitioning into residency experience impostor phenomenon and explores its multiple impacts on physicians training in the clinical learning environment.

ACGME Senior Scholar for Well-Being, Dr. Stuart Slavin, describes his work educating medical residents and Program Directors across the country in cognitive approaches to well-being and introduces a framework for approaching well-being in GME programs. Topics include the common negative mindsets to which residents and others working in stressful clinical environments can become vulnerable.  Dr. Slavin maintains that medical students transitioning into residency are particularly at risk for falling prey to these mindsets.

ACGME Senior Scholar for Well-Being Dr. Stuart Slavin discusses what residency programs can do to help physicians cope with negative mindsets and impostor phenomenon. Dr. Slavin provides an overview of several concepts from cognitive psychology, such as explanatory style and emotional self-regulation, that programs can introduce to their local curriculum to help residents and faculty enhance their well-being.

Dr. Stuart Slavin, ACGME Senior Scholar for Well-being, talks with a group of residents about how COVID-19 has impacted their well-being during training. They discuss how the practices of Psychological First Aid, an approach developed by a group of international non-profits to train people to help others experiencing trauma, has the potential to equip residents with strategies for managing the many challenges faced by their community members in crisis. Pediatric hospitalist Anu Gorukanti, a recent graduate of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center; Clare Brady, a second-year family medicine resident at Northwestern in Chicago, and Shivani Parikh, a third-year OB/Gyn resident at TriHealth in Chicago join us for this conversation. 

Pathologist Suzanne Powell and Neurologist Crystal Yeo share the results of their study of burnout, resilience and well-being with residents at Houston Methodist Hospital upon the advent of Hurricane Harvey. We discuss their results, which show the surprising impact that volunteerism can have on clinician well-being.

This month Dr. Stuart Slavin, ACGME Senior Scholar for Well-Being, joins pediatric hospitalist Dr. Anu Gorukanti and neurologist Dr. Jeffrey Dewey, who launched their careers as specialists during the pandemic, for this AWARE episode on the common challenges presented in the transition from residency to fellowship or practice. Together they explore what impact these challenges have on graduates, how the pandemic has amplified them, and share their personal stories and insights on how residents and fellows can prepare for these challenges.

In this new episode of the Aware Well-Being Podcast Systems and Research series, Lyuba Konopasek, MD, Senior Associate Dean for Education at the Frank Netter School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, discusses her efforts to develop a comprehensive approach to addressing issues that impact resident and faculty well-being. As the former DIO at New York Presbyterian Hospital, Dr. Konopasek drew on business literature, as well as her lived experiences in the GME community, to construct her “Recognize, Respond and Refer” model for mitigating and responding to burnout, anxiety and other forms of distress among clinicians.

In this discussion, ACGME Senior Scholar for Well-Being Stuart Slavin checks in on the mental health and emotional wellness of residents, faculty and others at institutions that sponsor training programs across the US. Well-Being scholars Mukta Panda (University of Tennessee-Chattanooga), Jonathan Ripp (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai), and Larissa Thomas (University of California—San Francisco) join him to examine the multiple impacts Omicron has left in its wake, including implications for reimagining graduate medical education for the future. The team explores some system and individual strategies the GME community can cultivate in response to these impacts, while acknowledging the ongoing need to be creative, resourceful and supportive in unprecedented times. 

In this episode of the AWARE Podcast's Cognition and Well-Being series, Stuart Slavin, MD, MEd, ACGME's Senior Scholar for Well-Being, discusses the concept and experience of shame with Dr. Will Bynum, MD, Associate Professor of Family Medicine at the Duke School of Medicine. Dr. Bynum speaks to his own relationship with shame over the course of medical school and residency. He then explores the ways in which his experience allowed him—and those of us working in graduate medical education to rethink the standard approaches to working through shame at both the personal and institutional levels. Additionally, they discuss the role of self-conscious emotions such as shame, guilt, and pride from the perspective of residents striving for excellence in graduate medical education.

In this episode of the AWARE Podcast's Cognition and Well-Being series, Stuart Slavin, MD, MEd and Anne Gravel Sullivan, PhD discuss the relationship between belonging and well-being with Dr. Mukta Panda, MD, MACP, FRCP-London. Dr. Panda, who is the Assistant Dean for Well-Being and Medical Student Education, as well as a Professor of Medicine at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine at Chattanooga, reflects upon her own struggle with well-being and how it ultimately led her to study the importance of a personal sense of belonging. Additionally, they analyze how well-being can be achieved when students and physicians can comfortably be their authentic selves, rather than attempting to fit into the molds that they feel pressured into being.

In this episode, Dr. Stuart Slavin and Dr. Greg Guldner discuss mental health and well-being in graduate medical education (GME). They highlight the reduced stigma among current residents/fellows but note the persistent underutilization of mental health services. Dr. Guldner explains barriers such as time constraints, prioritization issues, and the impact of depression on seeking help. He emphasizes the importance of addressing these barriers, especially during stressful periods of transition in GME. Despite advancements like teletherapy, many residents and fellows still do not seek the help they need, often due to internal and external stigmas and logistical challenges.

In this episode, Dr. Stuart Slavin interviews Dr. Jon Courand, a pediatrician and Dean for Well-Being in GME at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. They discuss Dr. Courand's journey into resident and faculty well-being work, highlighting his creation of the Transition to Residency Risk Index. Dr. Courand shares his experiences as a program director and critical care attending physician, dealing with burnout and moral distress. He emphasizes the significant challenges residents face during the transition from medical school to residency, including severe wellness issues that often go unnoticed by program directors.

In this episode, Dr. Stuart Slavin discusses the challenges of transitioning from medical school to residency with Dr. Andrea Tou, a pediatric gastroenterology fellow at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and Dr. Andrew Sullivan, an occupational environmental medicine resident at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences at Walter Reed National Medical Center. Dr. Tou shares her experience of moving from Canada to Europe for medical school and then to the US for residency, highlighting the isolation and lack of support she felt. Dr. Sullivan discusses the additional challenges of moving locations and the lack of support in a transitional internship. Both emphasize the importance of addressing mental health and well-being during these critical transition periods in graduate medical education.

In this episode, Dr. Stuart Slavin interviews Dr. Jim Naples, an assistant professor of otolaryngology at Harvard Medical School and residency director at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. They discuss the challenges of transitioning from medical school to residency, focusing on Dr. Naples' personal struggles with the “surgical yips” during his education and training. He describes the anxiety and pressure of being closely monitored in the operating room, which exacerbated his difficulties. Dr. Naples emphasizes the impact of the high-pressure environment on his performance and the importance of addressing these challenges in medical education.

In this episode, Dr. Stuart Slavin interviews Drs. Tyra Fainstad and Adrienne Mann from the University of Colorado School of Medicine. They discuss their creation of the Better Together Physician Coaching Program, which aims to support medical professionals during transitions, particularly from medical school to residency. Dr. Fainstad shares her struggles with seeking approval and anxiety during transitions, while Dr. Mann discusses her challenges with burnout, infertility, and balancing professional and personal life. Both emphasize the importance of coaching in helping them reexamine their thoughts and integrate their personal and professional lives effectively.

In this episode, Dr. Stuart Slavin interviews Dr. Will Bynum, an associate professor of family medicine at Duke University. They discuss the challenges of transitions in graduate medical education, particularly from medical school to residency, and the associated risks to well-being and mental health. Dr. Bynum explains how transitions can heighten feelings of shame due to new responsibilities, uncertainties, and high expectations. He describes shame as a “fire” that can be ignited in these combustible environments, affecting self-esteem and identity. The conversation emphasizes the importance of addressing these issues to support residents' mental health.

In this episode, Dr. Stuart Slavin interviews Dr. Paul Chelminski from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and Dr. Mukta Panda, CLER Field Representative at the ACGME. They discuss their involvement in well-being initiatives and their active roles in the Collaborative for Healing and Renewal in Medicine (CHARM). The conversation focuses on suicide prevention, exploring both immediate and preventive interventions. Both share their insights on the importance of connection, belonging, and finding meaning. They also discuss practical strategies for creating supportive environments and reducing barriers to mental health care in the medical field.

In this episode, Dr. Stuart Slavin interviews Corey Feist, founder and CEO of the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes' Foundation. They discuss Corey's involvement in suicide awareness and prevention initiatives following the tragic death of his sister-in-law, Dr. Lorna Breen. The conversation focuses on the immense pressures faced by health care professionals, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Corey shares insights into the importance of mental health support, connection, and belonging in the medical field. They also discuss practical strategies for creating supportive environments and reducing barriers to mental health care for health care workers.

In this episode, Dr. Stuart Slavin interviews Dr. Alan Nager, professor of pediatrics and division director for emergency medicine and transport medicine at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. They discuss the tragic loss of Dr. Nager's daughter, Sarah, a pediatric resident who died by suicide. The conversation focuses on Sarah's life, her passions, and her journey in medicine. Dr. Nager shares his insights on the pressures faced by medical residents and the importance of mental health support. They also explore strategies for creating supportive environments and reducing barriers to mental health care in the medical field.

In this episode, Dr. Stuart Slavin interviews Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and Dr. Sid Zisook, professor of psychiatry at the University of California and director of the Physician Peer Support Program. They discuss their pioneering work in suicide prevention at the University of California, San Diego, including the development of the HEAR Program (Healer, Education, Assessment, and Referral). The conversation explores the multifaceted approach they took, including education, screening, and warm referrals, to support mental health among physicians and other health care workers. Both share insights on the importance of addressing stigma, creating supportive environments, and implementing comprehensive mental health programs.

In this episode, Dr. Stuart Slavin interviews Dr. Srijan Sen, professor of depression and neurosciences in the Department of Psychiatry and director of the Francis and Kenneth Eisenberg and Family Depression Center at the University of Michigan. They discuss Dr. Sen's extensive research on depression in medical residents, exploring the relationship between depression and suicide. The conversation delves into the multifactorial nature of suicide, the impact of workplace conditions on mental health, and the importance of both treatment and prevention of depression. Dr. Sen shares insights on effective preventive measures and strategies to create supportive environments in medical education.