Learner Wellness Portfolio
Vision
A Faculty of Medicine where the psychological, physical, and social wellbeing of learners is supported within a learning environment that celebrates diversity, equity, and professional and personal growth.
Wellbeing is a critical enabler for medical learners to develop the expertise, scholarship, awareness of social equity and responsibility and compassion for patients, families and colleagues required to be effective physicians.
Goals
The well-being of medical education learners is a crucial element facilitating an optimal learning experience and, as learners transition to the clinical learning environment, patient care. The Temerty Professorship in Learner Wellness portfolio is focused on the development and implementation of a wellness strategy for learners in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine’s undergraduate and postgraduate medical education programs.
Current Initiatives
Exploration
- Environmental Scan — Wellness curriculum, leadership, initiative
Community of Wellness Leaders
- Community of Practice for Wellness Leadership — to launch Fall 2022
- Learner Wellness Advisory Committee — to launch Fall 2022
Education — Curriculum Development
- Undergraduate MD Program
- Renewal of Learner Wellness curriculum
- Disability justice working group (undergraduate and postgraduate)
- Postgraduate Medicine
- Renewal of Learner Wellness curriculum
- Development of Wellness Workshops and Toolkits to be facilitated and delivered collaboratively with programs
Faculty Development
- To support faculty with skills and competencies to foster Positive Learning Environments and Culture of Wellness for all learners at UofT.
- Wellness Leadership Task Analysis: key competencies for faculty and trainees
- Pandemic Recovery Workshop
Wellness and Temerty Medicine
In 2017 a Strategic Wellness Working Group reviewed the literature for best practices available exist to support physician wellness. This project is being re-launched currently with a focus on medical learner and practitioner wellbeing.
In medical training and practice wellness is influenced by interconnected driving factors at the level of the individual, the organization, the system and the culture in which we learn.
Findings of the Wellness Working Group brought several key concepts to the forefront:
(i) While it is tempting at a time of significant identified deficits and difficulties in organizations, to focus solely on the organization, it is essential to remember that there is evidence that individual factors play an important role in medical learner wellbeing. Time and resources are needed to maintain personal wellness, and consideration must be given to individual differences and needs, and the role these play in wellness.
(ii) Medical learners exist in a larger organization and system. Characteristics of the organization/system can influence the wellbeing of individuals. Supporting values and frameworks that create an environment that allows for elements of autonomy within a system of accountability, and that support a just culture, are essential considerations.
(iii) The culture in which we work influences the individual, and individuals can influence the culture. There must be recognition of this bidirectionality, and we must create safe spaces that will allow our people to influence and shape our culture.
Culture: the shared values, expectations, and practices that guide and inform the actions of all team members.