CORE PRINCIPLE WELLNESS RETREATS

The core principle wellness retreats are an easy way to add to the legitimacy of a school sponsored wellness initiative. Medical students quickly learn that there are very few programs or events for which medical school administrators will pardon absence from class or grant time off from clerkship rotations. These generally consist of presenting research at national meetings or residency interviews. That being said, excusing students from their class and clerkship obligations to attend a retreat focused on wellness greatly legitimizes wellness as a fundamental component of a medical education. Below are some key components to creating a successful core wellness retreat program:

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  Retreats must be mandatory
  

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  Structured programming should only encompass half of the day, with students being given the remainder of the day off from class or clerkship obligations
  

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  Retreats should take place off campus
  

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  Retreats must remain flexible to the needs of the students
  

Institutional BUY-IN

Hopefully it has been apparent that a consistent requirement for the development of each aspect of an all-encompassing school sponsored wellness initiative is institutional buy-in. Without support from the institution any attempt at the development of a wellness initiative is doomed to failure.

Upon reflection on the evolution of the Vanderbilt Wellness Program is becomes readily apparent that much of the program’s success was dependent on the consistent efforts of the Dean of Students who, in having the ear of the Dean of Medicine and the ability to gain access to the key decision makers at Vanderbilt, was able to make the vision of the Wellness Program a reality. Having a point person for implementation within the Dean’s Office is vital to the success of a program such as this. While the Dean of Students at Vanderbilt took up that charge, there may be others at your institution that can serve as the administrative point person for this effort and provide the key support needed within the Dean’s Office.

Institutional buy-in as a whole exists in several forms with the most obvious, but not necessarily the most crucial, being financial support. It goes without saying that the substantial financial support that the Vanderbilt Wellness Program receives annually has had a great impact on the current state of the program. It has allowed for the provision of 30% protected salary time for faculty serving as College Mentors, which enables these faculty members to contribute significant portions of their time to their role as College Mentors without detracting from departmental benchmarks. The Student Wellness Committee's annual $10,000 budget allows for extensive annual programming as well as the flexibility to attempt new programming and initiatives each year. Lastly, funding of the annual Wellness Retreats for each class, including transportation, food, meeting space and free-day entertainment options, is an expense that goes a long way toward legitimizing the importance of wellness.

However, we would argue that this is not the most crucial aspect of institutional buy-in. An institution must truly believe that maintaining wellness is a crucial aspect of medical education which will ultimately have a substantial impact on a student's future success as a physician. This type of buy-in is manifested by school administrators’ presence at key wellness events, their comments on wellness when discussing institutional goals, and their willingness to illustrate wellness in their own lives. This must be the first step in the creation of any wellness initiative. It is not necessary for everyone to instantly start professing the virtues of wellness, but rather that key leaders demonstrate an openness to the idea that the goals of a school-sponsored wellness initiative benefit students and, thereby, the institution as a whole. Following this first step, financial investments in wellness appear much more plausible as institutional leaders are able to see that wellness initiatives result in more successful students which develop into thriving physicians.

The length of time required for this type of institutional buy-in to be accomplished is extremely variable. However, we feel that the information we have learned about the success and impact of our Wellness Program, as discussed previously, should help legitimize the importance of a school-sponsored wellness initiative and should help encourage administrators to make the cultural, if not financial, investment in a similar program at your institution.

FACULTY AND STUDENT BUY-IN

Student buy-in exists on two fronts: seeking students willing to lead and organize the efforts of a wellness initiative as well as convincing the student body of the importance of seeking and maintaining wellness. Much of the second point has been described above including programming that responds to student needs, seeking out engaged faculty, and garnering administration support. The first point however is a more subtle but profoundly important one. Wellness at your institution will be entirely dependent on how your student leaders portray it. For example, if your student wellness leader only discusses training for triathlons and the need to go to the gym every day of week, then that is exactly what the student body will perceive wellness to be. Subsequently, if a student is incapable of that or disagrees with that, they will likely come to the conclusion that 'wellness isn't for me'. Seeking out students who actually embody the true sense of wellness as well as who are able to convey that message to others is of the utmost importance, and is something that must be done before attempting to move forward.

FIGURE 4: FACULTY LED MENTORING PROGRAM

FIGURE 5: STUDENT LED PROGRAMMING

FIGURE 6: CORE WELLNESS PRINCIPLE RETREATS

IMPLEMENTATION TIMELINE

FIGURE 7: IMPLEMENTATION TIMELINE

Section IV:

ESTABLISHMENT OF A WELLNESS COMMUNITY

WELLNESS ORGANIZATIONS within medical colleges (wowmc)

With the acquisition of this guidebook and your expressed interest in the creation of a school sponsored wellness initiative at your institution, you are expressing your support of the importance of wellness in medical education and your commitment to spreading that message at your institution.

It is the goal of Vanderbilt to more formally recognize that commitment with the creation of a medical society encompassing medical institutions that support medical student wellness: the Wellness Organizations Within Medical Colleges (WOWMC). With the creation of this society, we hope to send the message that wellness is not simply an extracurricular activity at a handful of institutions, but rather an integral component of the medical profession that institutions have made a commitment to pursue.

This society in only just now in its infancy, but it is our vision that as wellness initiatives are adopted at medical institutions across the country and around the world, this society will lead the way in the development and advancement of wellness principles and will allow for the sharing and disseminating of information quickly for the benefit of medical students world-wide.

Program effectiveness

We strongly encourage you to constantly evaluate your program’s effectiveness. It is our belief that only through regular evaluation and scrutiny will a program continue to remain effective and relevant. Through the regular use of surveys as well as tracking student participation, your program will better be able to meet the needs of your individual students, and thus remain relevant at your institution.

Vanderbilt has developed several assessment tools to evaluate our wellness programming and would happily share these resources with other institutions. As your program gets underway, please remain in contact with us so that we may continue to assist you in the development of self-assessment tools that target the needs of your specific program.

Ideally, with the creation and expansion of WOWMC, this type of information will be easily disseminated amongst institutions and will allow all involved programs to continue to improve their own self-evaluation.

varying models for success

While we are understandably confident in our model for a school sponsored wellness initiative we do recognize that there are alternative approaches that may be as, or even more, successful than our approach at encouraging and supporting our students’ wellness.

Just as we are happy to share our approaches, we would love to learn what is successful at your institution so that we also can continue to improve the ways in which we support our medical student population. Open exchange of information is vital to the successful adoption of wellness as an integral part of medical education.