Following are toolkits, activities, and practical approaches that address clinician wellbeing.
Do you have a resource that offers clinician wellness techniques and strategies that are being applied successfully? Please share here.
Grief and Resilience
Healthcare workers are rarely taught about the reality of grief over patient loss, how to cope with such grief, or the importance of debrief sessions after patient losses and/or adverse events. In 2023, the Gold Humanism Honor Society hosted a workshop titled Grief Over Patient Loss: a collective debriefing through poetry and prose, led by Amira Athanasios, MD, which offered a review and engaging discussion about different types, models, and practices relating to grief.
Find slides from her presentation, along reflection questions and other mental health resources for healthcare workers at this link.
These downloadable activities relate to a workshop on grief and resilience for healthcare professionals, shared by Kat Hurley, LCSW, APHSW-C, AGRMS.
Nature Prescriptions
This recorded “Connecting With and Prescribing Healing Nature” virtual workshop was hosted in May 2023 as part of the GHHS Well-being Workshop Series. Led by Nina Stoyan-Rosenzweig, PhD, Director of the Medical Humanities Program at the University of Florida College of Medicine, presented ways for healthcare professionals and students to develop their own healing nature practice, and to learn how to develop plans and resources for facilitating conversations on individualized healing nature plans with patients.
Download the example activities, nature walks and prompts, prescription examples, and more that were shared through the workshop here in our practical applications database.
Park Rx America offers resources and tools for both clinicians, patients, and the public. They share nature prescriptions and research about the benefits of nature, asserting that that nature-rich areas should be accessible to all and incorporated into our daily routines.
PaRx: A Prescription for Nature is an initiative of the BC Parks Foundation, driven by health-care professionals who want to improve their patients’ health by connecting them to nature. Featuring practical resources like quick tips and patient handouts, its goal is to make prescribing time in nature simple, fun and effective.
Authentic Doctor Survey
Authentic living means consistently being the same person across all areas of your life: your thoughts, words and actions are in alignment. For medical professionals, living this way often feels impossible. The Authentic Doctor Survey is a qualitative research tool developed by Dr. Jessica Allen Ching to take a closer look at this struggle and advocate for change.
The survey takes 3 minutes to complete, and all responses are anonymous. The experience of taking the survey also offers value in reflecting on your responses and provides powerful collective insight that informs change.
Arts on Prescription Field Guide
What if your doctor could prescribe you a poem, or your therapist could refer you to a museum? Each of these could contribute to your health and well-being, which is what the practice of “arts on prescription” aims to do. The Arts on Prescription Field Guide, assembled by collaborators from the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Mass Cultural Council, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and Harvard University, offers an in-depth resource for communities that wish to formally integrate arts and culture into health and social care systems.
For related resources, visit the art, design and humanities collection.
NAM Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-Being and Resilience
The National Academy of Medicine launched the Action Collaborative. a network of 200+ organizations committed to reversing trends in clinician burnout. They published a National Plan for Health Workforce Well-Being and offer a collection of resources that highlight strategies and tools that health care leaders and workers can use across practice settings to take action toward decreasing burnout and improving clinician well-being.
Kern National Network for Flourishing in Medicine
The Kern National Network for Flourishing in Medicine (KNN) is a national movement focused on integrating caring, character, practical wisdom and flourishing within the profession of medicine. It aims to transform health professions education, influence healthcare cultures and environments, and promote broader policy and systems change.
Shame in Medicine Documentary Podcast Series
Shame in Medicine: The Lost Forest, an award-winning 10-part documentary podcast series, explores how shame manifests in medical culture. Hosted by Emily Silverman, MD of The Nocturnists and produced in collaboration with Shame Space Consortium members Will Bynum, MD and Luna Dolezal, PhD, the series breaks the silence about shame in medical practice, sharing intimate stories told by healthcare workers from across the globe.
The Shame Space
The Shame Space is an international network of professionals who use creative storytelling and research to advance shame awareness, shame resilience, and shame-sensitive practice in healthcare, with the overarching goal of creating more connected, authentic, and safe healthcare systems for all.
AMA Physician Burnout Portal
American Medical Association’s Physician Burnout Portal offers a better understanding of physician burnout and how it can be prevented with a selection of educational activities. They include insights on how to redesign your practice to reduce stress and promote well-being. Learn now and receive Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits.
AMA StepsForward Module
American Medical Association’s StepsForward Module provides key steps to help prevent physician burnout in a practice, offers strategies to construct a process to measure and improve physician well-being, and presents examples of successful burnout prevention programs in a variety of settings.
APA Well-Being and Burnout Portal
American Psychiatric Association’s Well-Being and Burnout Portal offers an online self-assessment tool and a suite of resources to help clinicians achieve well-being and address individual and system-level challenges which contribute to professional burnout.
AAMC Well-Being and Emotional Resiliency
A collection of resources related to well-being put together by the American Association of Medical Colleges.
5B Toolkit from American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN)
AACN created this teaching resource for nursing students which includes themes such as self-awareness, self-care, resilience, and wellness.
These themes are intended to help new nurses more fully understand their role as caregiver as well as the settings and systems in which they will practice. Each theme is introduced and followed by a Reflection exercise that can be used to engage students in a deeper conversation about role expectations and the practice of nursing. Related resources and recommended readings also are included to spark further study of the identified theme.
ANA Nurse Burnout and Prevention
American Nurses Association’s article on Nurse Burnout and Prevention describes nurse burnout and moral injury and offers prevention techniques for individuals.
Nursing Burnout: The Solvable Problem Within Your Control
This blog post from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses offers practical ways for individuals to release the stress response (“stuck stress”).
Starting Points and Care Packages from On Being
This collection of “starting points” from the podcast On Being offers feature episodes and virtual care packages that include podcasts, poetry, meditations and reflection for “however you’re processing this moment.”
The Narrative Method
The Narrative Method is a nonprofit addressing the epidemic of loneliness using creative expression to build human connection through creative writing and conversation. Through free virtual salons, participants are encouraged to take creative risks in their writing and to share their feelings more openly than they might feel comfortable doing elsewhere.
Reflections on the healer’s art
This list of healer’s art quotes from various individuals read like a healer’s prayer and offer prompts for contemplation about the art of healing.
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