Wellness within Academia
The program leadership encourages fellows to establish care and meet with health providers (i.e. primary care, mental health, dental, and other specialists).
- Recognizing that it is often challenging to obtain evening/weekend appointments with providers, we work with our faculty members to ensure that fellows can protect time out of their workday to attend health appointments including their own psychotherapy.
In order to help prepare our fellows for life after residency, the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences arranges lectures on such life skills as financial preparedness (e.g. loan forgiveness plans and saving for retirement), job interviewing, and contract negotiation.
Pecha Kucha with the Program Director
Pecha Kucha translates as “the sound of conversation” or “chit-chat” in Japanese. Fellows meet with the program director on a monthly basis over a complementary dinner in order to check in with each other, be able to offer feedback about the program, and to trouble shoot any issues in real time.
On an individual basis, the program director also performs wellness check-ins during each fellow’s semi-annual evaluations. During these check-ins, the program director reviews and gives feedback on the fellows’ wellness plans. The program leaders’ “doors” are always open to residents.
Life Coaching with Better Together
Do you identify as a woman*? Are you also feeling burnout? Have you ever suffered from Imposter Syndrome? Feeling frustrated, bored, bitter or overwhelmed by your work? We have a coaching program for YOU – that actually works. Spaces are limited and going fast. Enroll HERE, and read on for details:
BETTER TOGETHER PHYSICIAN COACHING is a program that we are studying that is designed for busy residents and fellows trying to balance the demands of a rigorous training program without losing themselves in the process. Tyra Fainstad and Adrienne Mann are two IM faculty at the University of Colorado that are professionally certified life coaches. We created a 6-month, online coaching program for women* residents. We piloted it last year, studied it through a Randomized Controlled Trial – and found that it WORKS. Participants of the coaching program went from highly burnt-out to just moderately burnt-out over the course of the program. We also actually “cured” imposter syndrome for the average trainee, and we increased self-compassion by a huge amount. See the attached paper for real results, and the quotes below from our participant interviews for a sneak peek!
Participant Quotes:
“Yeah. We have a wellness some-thing-or-other… It’s an ACGME requirement that we have a wellness curriculum, but that focuses mostly on lectures about how sleep is important or things that are very surface level. I know that sleeping is important, but… It seems like leadership is just going through the motions, but doesn’t really believe them because, it didn’t really seem genuine. It seemed like they were fulfilling a requirement rather than actually investing in our wellness. Whereas [Better Together] was an opportunity to really take on a new way of thinking about that and being involved in something that would actually really seem to contribute to all this and benefit me.”
“Pretty early on I realized it was a great fit. Being able to observe other people being coached, I just got so much out of that. I started writing down things that… I would go back and watch the videos, and then write down certain things, and I’ve took notes and stuff that I refer back to. Because kind of what they’ve been saying all along is that, we really all have similar thoughts and struggles. And seeing that… Like I was saying, we don’t really hear about that, that much in a professional setting. So I think just learning like, wow, this person also has these concerns or this person also worries about this, that was really when I started to feel that it was helpful.”
“The coaching has stuck with me for months after, and helped with my work and life as a whole.”
“They did a good job normalizing thought loops and holding compassion for our struggles in residency, then they would ask how we could empower ourselves. Like you still have some power even though the situation feels like a tough situation all around. Those lessons I think are pretty important. But the way they approached it all was like very understanding, very compassionate.”
“We’ve done a lot of wellness things within our residency program, but nothing has been to the degree of wellness that I feel like that’s been brought from this program. This is the most helpful, great thing, more than any other wellness thing that we’ve ever done in our program.”
We are excited to offer YOU this coaching program for FREE- and we invite you to enroll now to begin coaching on 9/1/2022.
BETTER TOGETHER will give you the tools to FEEL BETTER in your training program (and life in general). We offer unlimited coaching on any topic (written and on live weekly zoom calls) and will guide you through a personal development self-study program designed to improve your wellbeing, social connectedness, and resilience. Topics will include harnessing self-confidence, banishing imposter syndrome, and deliberately becoming your most authentic and best self.
BETTER TOGETHER is designed for busy residents and fellows. This experience will be scalable for you, by you. There are no set requirements or grades. We will be there each step of the way.
ARE YOU IN? Click HERE to sign up.
Have some questions? Check out this VIDEO, or please reach to tyra.fainstad@cuanschutz.edu and Adrienne.mann@cuanschutz.edu, who will be happy to chat with you.
* We seek to build a diverse, inclusive cohort, and we welcome residents and fellows who identify as women. This space is for all cis and trans women as well as non-binary people who are comfortable in a space that centers the experiences of women.
Wellness Days
House staff may take up to two wellness days per year to attend to medical, mental health and dental care appointments, including those scheduled during their working hours. Wellness days may also be taken when house staff are unable to attend work due to fatigue, illness, family emergencies, and parental leave. Wellness days are scheduled at the discretion of the program director. They are not subtracted from vacation time.
Sick Days
House staff may take up to five sick days per year at the discretion of their program director. Sick days are not subtracted from vacation time
Flexible Wellness Allowance
House staff will receive four quarterly stipends of $250.00 in their paycheck to use on meals, at the Rush Bookstore, at the Rush Fitness Center, or on other wellness expenses.
Counseling services
Rush Wellness aspires to create highly innovative, evidence-based solutions that will positively impact our community and the future of health care. In July 2020, Rush Wellness opened the Center for Clinical Wellness (CCW) to provide a healing environment aligned with our It’s About RUSH efforts to support Rush staff and students.
The Rush Center for Clinical Wellness (CCW) offers counseling for house staff at no cost. See the CCW website for more information and to schedule an appointment. The Rush Center for Clinical Wellness also offers Well-Being Coaches and mini wellness retreats to Rush houses staff, students, faculty and staff. Learn more about the CCW in this YouTube video.
Employee assistance program
The employee assistance program (EAP), ComPsych, provides free and confidential managed mental health care services for employees/members and families struggling with personal difficulties. You may self-refer. The EAP can also help with finding child or elder care, addressing financial or legal issues, dealing with relationship concerns, getting help for alcohol and drug dependence. Contact 877-465-1324 or visit guidanceresources.com.
Health and fitness center
The Rush Health and Fitness Center, located at 711 S. Paulina St., supports all your health goals by helping you get in shape, lose weight or unwind after a busy day. The facility includes a fitness studio, cardio, strength training and stretching areas, and men’s and women’s locker rooms with showers. Contact the Rush Health and Fitness Center.
About Insurance Coverage
All three Rush medical insurance plan options cover mental health and substance use services the same way, regardless of the network. 6,136 mental health providers are now available to the Rush community at the same price point as the Rush Provider network. Inpatient and outpatient mental health services will be covered whether you use Rush providers or Cigna network providers. The co-pays and co-insurance are the same for both networks.