Resident Wellness

<

►

>

Wellness initiatives 

• Wellness days: In each resident’s schedule, we incorporate two full days off scheduled in advance intended to allow you to schedule things like routine medical appointments, catch up on “life” things, rest, relax, and indulge in self-care (whatever that means for you!).
• Resident retreat: Yearly, we choose a weekend typically in early fall in which our attendings cover the hospital and all residents are off for a full 24 hours. This retreat is planned by our second years and we are free to be creative with it. We typically start off with a topic of discussion (in recent years we’ve reviewed and adjusted our program’s fatigue policy and parental leave policies) and then spend the remainder of the time simply enjoying each other’s company. In the past two years, we have rented large homes to spend the night at and enjoyed our time with games, friendly competitions, slip ‘n slides, and movies. Other activities have included visiting wineries, conquering an escape room, and enjoying local bars and restaurants. It’s something we look forward to all year!
• Holiday Karaoke Party: Initially founded by our recently graduated (and greatly missed) gyn oncology fellow, Jeanine Staples, we now have an annual holiday karaoke party hosted by our gyn oncology department that’s always a blast!   

 Wellness Committee 

We’ve created a wellness committee to facilitate a more active focus on wellness in our program and to create and implement wellness initiatives throughout the year.  To date, some things we’ve coordinated include L&D bingo (a friendly competition between the OB day and night teams), seasonal competitions, social events, and created a lending library in our L&D workroom. We also hope to incorporate some initiatives focused on long term wellness, such as workshops on leadership and effective communication, moving forward. 

Culture of Wellness 

Vastly more important than any of our individual initiatives is the overall culture of wellness, support and mutual respect within our program at UVA. As a whole, we value each individual person but also strongly value camaraderie and positive group dynamics.  We have seen that every year, as new residents come and older residents go, we become a new cohort, and are always open to new ideas and change as part of our commitment to a culture of wellness.