The Resilient Resident: A Resiliency Curriculum on Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Resident Burnout

Background: Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) physicians are among those most affected by burnout. Following the 2017 Revision of ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) Requirements, programs and institutions were encouraged to emphasize physician well-being and recognition and strategies to mitigate burnout. As an at-risk specialty, we desired to develop and implement a facilitated resilience curriculum for Resident Physicians (RPs). Methods: Resilience Series workshop curriculum was put into action during the 2018-2019 academic year at a Rehabilitation Hospital. The leader of each workshop previously underwent formal resilience training in integrative health coaching and organizational leadership. In part with all RP’s, a four-part workshop series was conducted using four guiding questions: (1) “Who am I and who are we?”, (2) “What contributes to resilience?”, (3) “What challenges our resilience?”, and (4) “How can we combat challenges to resilience?”. Pilot data on curriculum usability was collected via an End of Curriculum Assessment (ECA) administered to all RPs. Data did not require specific statistical analysis computation. Results: Key RP ECA themes highlighted that (1) RPs were highly engaged in the process, (2) all RPs reported the Resilience Curriculum was helpful, (3) strategies learned in times of stress were firmly adopted, (4) RPs endorsed increased comfort discussing personal struggles with peers and more control over work schedules. Conclusions: Our resilience curriculum is a pilot program that provides an example curriculum to address RP burnout in the workplace and can be used to meet ACGME residency program requirements.