Small Steps for a Big Change: A Longitudinal Project to Enhance Well-Being of Internal Medicine Residents

Introduction: Residency training is demanding and often leads to burnout. In 2017, Internal Medicine (IM) residents at our institution reported a poor collective residency experience. In response, we launched a longitudinal wellness program in 2018, featuring multi-pronged interventions to improve residents' well-being. The program, still active today, has undergone iterative modifications with ongoing input from residents. Approach: The resident-led Wellness Committee was established in 2018, and the following no to low-cost initiatives were implemented sequentially: quarterly group sessions with an institutional health psychologist, bi-annual self-checks, peer buddy support for incoming first-year residents, weekly 5-minute reflection sessions, and volunteer dog visits. Discussion: All planned activities were well-received by residents, as indicated by positive survey responses. Ninety percent of the survey respondents for the health-psychologist sessions strongly agreed or agreed that the sessions were very useful. Eighty-four percent of the responding first-year residents felt their peer buddy answered their questions, and 93% expressed interest in volunteering as a buddy in subsequent years. Additionally, 80% of survey respondents found the weekly 5-minute reflection sessions to be a positive experience. We also noticed an overall improvement in institutional annual Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) well-being survey scores from 2018 to 2023, especially in the domain of emotional exhaustion. Conclusion: We propose a feasible, low-cost wellness toolkit that is easy to implement and sustainable. The quantitative and qualitative data demonstrate that this approach is not only acceptable but successful in engaging residents and addressing various aspects of their well-being.