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

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/ijms.2023.3000

Keywords:

Resiliency, Curriculum, Burnout, Physician, Wellness interventions, Organizational leadership, Education, Stress management, ACGME requirements, Physician burnout

Abstract

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: We performed a clinical audit to develop and implement a resilience curriculum (RC) during the 2018-2019 academic year at a tertiary accredited acute care rehabilitation facility. 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?”. We report PM&R RP responses to an End of Curriculum Assessment (ECA).

Results: Key ECA themes highlighted that RPs were highly engaged in the process, all reported the RC was helpful, and strategies learned in times of stress were firmly adopted. By the end of the academic year, 93.3% RPs reported that they used strategies learned from the curriculum in times of stress during the academic year. Of these, 85.7% RPs reported using these strategies multiple times a month), (4) endorsed increased comfort discussing personal struggles with peers and more control over work schedules. 100% of RPS were able to make and sustain new positive lifestyle changes throughout the academic year.

Conclusions: Our pilot resilience curriculum provides preliminary data in support of a curriculum to address PM&R RPs burnout in the workplace and can be used to meet ACGME residency program requirements.

References

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Published

2025-10-28

How to Cite

McClintock, A., Michunovich, A., Ference, E., Bruce, J., Kult, J., Nguyen, V., … Desai, S. (2025). The Resilient Resident: A Pilot Resiliency Curriculum on Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Resident Burnout. International Journal of Medical Students. https://doi.org/10.5195/ijms.2023.3000

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Forthcoming

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Copyright (c) 2025 Alicia McClintock, Ana Michunovich, Edward Ference, Jordan Bruce, Vu Nguyen, Mark Hirsch, Sima Desai, Justine Levesque

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