The issues of wellness, burnout, and resilience have recently got much more attention across nearly all health professions. Emergency Medicine (EM) specifically was singled out as one of the specialties with highest risk for burnout at 60%. Recent studies suggest that burnout may erode professionalism, influence quality of care, increase the risk for medical errors, and promote early provider retirement.There has been much discussion around the general “UN-wellness” of clinicians, and we now feel that there is a dire need for action. As a response to this need, we have launched the Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) Wellness Think Tank. The Wellness Think Tank is a private virtual community comprised of EM residents across North America and leaders in wellness, like Jason Brooks, PhD who is a Peak Performance Coach and Strategist. Our umbrella vision of improving physician wellness has helped us to secure funding and sponsorship from individual donations and vested organizations such as US Acute Care Solutions. The issues we address through virtual discussion, strategy development, and consensus building include: suicide prevention and burnout, best practices in clinical work scheduling, litigation stress, imposter syndrome, and performance psychology.
We have developed a dynamic and varied curriculum with multiple facets. Some of our specific tracks are working to create a “best tech” list of apps and other technologies that can improve individual wellness and develop an inventory of best practices to emphasize wellness in residency training programs. We also aim to provide exposure to various techniques that can be used to improve well-being, such as mindfulness, meditation, performance psychology, and positive psychology. Through interactions with our wellness experts we will engage in important conversations about recognizing colleagues at risk, bullying and disruptive behavior in medicine, and physician mental health as a whole.
Our ultimate goal is to create a culture of wellness within Emergency Medicine so that we may prevent burnout, depression, and perhaps eventually physician suicide, which has plagued our vocation and negatively affected patient care. With our panel, we will bring together the stakeholders of educators, industry, and patients who have been involved with the creation and sustenance of the Wellness Think Tank. We will share our experiences and lessons learned.
![](https://s2.save4k.ru/pic/t38CHRRC_Oc/maxresdefault.jpg)