Art of Medicine
May 2023
Abstract
Health professional students often attend lectures equating resiliency with self-care. While self-care is vital, this graphic series suggests a dialectical tension between resiliency (as self-care) and resiliency (as group action or solidarity) and considers how actualizing and mobilizing “wellness” really is done in health professions education.
Figure. Detail from Resiliency: A Completely Normal Conversation Between a Box and a Medical Student
Media
Procreate®.
Caption
This comic considers how actualizing and mobilizing “wellness” really is done in health professions education. Health professional students often attend lectures equating resiliency with self-care. In many medical schools, students formally are coached in wellness but are actually still required to behave in ways that undermine their wellness.1,2 Such norms in medical education also spill over to health professions educational norms more broadly.3 While self-care is vital, this graphic series suggests a dialectical tension between resiliency that comes from self-care and resiliency that can be generated from group action or solidarity forged in interprofessional learning.
References
- Meeks LM, Ramsey J, Lyons M, Spencer AL, Lee WW. Wellness and work: mixed messages in residency training. J Gen Intern Med. 2019;34(7):1352-1355.
- Dyrbye LN, West CP, Satele D, et al. Burnout among US medical students, residents, and early career physicians relative to the general US population. Acad Med. 2014;89(3):443-451.
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Supporting the health and professional well-being of nurses. In: Wakefield MK, Williams DR, Le Menestrel S, Flaubert JL, eds; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity. National Academies Press; 2021:chap 10. Accessed January 24, 2023. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK573902/
