Wellness

To enhance support and meaning in the experience of being a physician, our residency has the following groups:

Class-specific Personal and Professional Development (PPD) Groups are facilitated by behavioral medicine faculty and occur every four weeks throughout residency. They are a confidential place to process the highs and lows of patient experiences, teaching moments, and life outside of residency. PPD groups normalize the challenges of residency, build resiliency and self-compassion, communication and reflection skills, and class support and connection. 

Balint Groups, during Half-Day Conference (HDC), are confidential groups facilitated by physician and behavioral medicine faculty that uncover different and new perceptions about the patient’s and clinician’s feelings and their experiences with each other. The group is a safe place for emotional reflection on troubling patients and an opportunity to refine relationship and reflection skills.

Inpatient Support Groups are facilitated by behavioral medicine faculty during each Hospital Medicine rotation and are confidential groups to process experiences and get support during our most challenging rotations.

Residents (and faculty) have opportunities to work together as a community to promote wellness. Scheduled activities include:

• Wellness activities in our Half-Day Conference (HDC) sessions. Community building, relaxation and creative exploration are the foundation of this HDC series. These 1-2 hour sessions include activities such as self-reflective exercises, movement meditation, interactive games, nature walks, arts & crafts, and more.
• R1 Wellness Projects: R1s are given time during their Behavioral Medicine rotation to create a Wellness project. They lead a 30-60 minute interactive activity-based wellness intervention during their class PPD afternoons. Activities have included meditation/mindfulness, yoga, dance, art, food/nutrition, resiliency, self-compassion, gratitude, book group, a service event, and team-building activities. They write up the activity and package it with research/evidence, links to materials, names of apps, or other resources into a final project that is shared with the whole Contra Costa Health Services community.
• Annual Resident-Faculty Retreat: This weekend-long event welcomes all residents and providers who teach residents to be together in community to learn, bond, and have fun. Activities change year-to-year but have included osteopathic manipulative therapy education, a conflict resolution workshop, a revision of the residency program's mission, arts and crafts, planning of elective rotations, dance parties, wellbeing workshops, and more. This retreat has been held in the picturesque beach town of Point Reyes for the last few years.
• Annual Residency Class Retreats: Each resident class has an opportunity to take its own retreat and come together in a fun, relaxing way.

We want our residents to develop the practices and skills to enhance wellness not only during residency but in their future careers. Here are some things we offer toward that end:

• Education in signs of sleep deprivation and fatigue management
• Orientation to support resources, such as access to therapists through our insurance health plans, the county's Employee Assistance Program, our medical staff's Physician's Assistance Committee, and key support faculty for residents.
• Behavioral Medicine didactics on topics such as setting boundaries, conflict negotiation, vicarious traumatization, empathy and dealing with difficult emotions, and writing topics on grief and facing mistakes.
• Noon Conference (our "Grand Rounds") presentations on wellbeing.
• Mindfulness meditation, gratitude practices, and self-care goals are regular parts of each Personal Professional Development (PPD) group (see above).
• Wellness electives (in the R2 and R3 years). The two such electives are:
  • "Leading Physician Well-being", which enables participants to learn more about the history of physician burnout and learn from experts in the field physician well-being about ways to combat personal and institutional burnout.
  • "Wellness", which allows participants to focus on their own wellness through a variety of resources, activities and time to care for oneself.
• Wellness Days: Residents can schedule two days per year devoted to developing skills that will enable them to recognize the status of personal and professional well-being, promote well-being, and reduce burnout throughout their careers.