A career transition can be a challenging time for medical learners and physicians, but educators, mentors and coaches can help make the change a positive one.
The information and resources below can help you prioritize health and wellness when supporting someone through a career transition.
Helping you make wellness a priority in medical education
Featured resources
A curated collection of wellness resources for medical educators. They include best practices, insights into the importance of psychological safety and mental wellness role models, the dangers of stigma and perfectionism in medicine, and medical students’ perspectives on how educators can help them embrace mental wellness from day one.
Creating psychologically safe learning environments to counter perfectionism in medicine
Perfectionism is just one of the problems that medical learners encounter. Use these resources to help them establish a wellness mindset.
Trauma-informed Medical Education
Dr. Ghazala Radwi describes the importance of cultivating trauma-informed learning environments in medical education.
Mentorship in health care
Introducing resources to help medical learners and physicians establish mentor-mentee relationships that foster personal and career development.
“We aren’t actually part of normal society, not anymore. Medicine does something to us. It teaches us another language, one only other doctors can understand. Eventually it scripts our emotions, neutralizing them whenever they threaten to overwhelm our senses.” – Dr. Jillian Horton
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Dedicated wellness training can help improve resident wellness. Establishing this mindset early in a physician’s career can have long-term effects on both physician health and patient care by preventing future wellness issues.
How medical educators support student wellness
Medical educators have an important role to play in fostering a wellness mindset among medical students, residents, mentees and anyone else involved in the learning process.
A psychologically safe learning environment — one that is conducive to interpersonally risky behaviours such as speaking up or asking for help — is critically important to medical students and residents.
This resource collection offers access to the school-specific wellness resources for 16 of Canada's medical schools. These resources provide important wellness information to address personal or professional concerns.
Dalhousie University
Learner Well Being
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Establishing a wellness mindset Stress Burnout Depression Self-care
“I can honestly say I have never been through anything like this in my life.” – Dr. Sabrina Akhtar, Toronto
When a global pandemic was declared in March 2020, medical professionals went into hyperdrive to try and contain the virus, treat patients and keep themselves safe. Nearly a year later this work continues, but what is the cost to physician wellness? Do we need to re-think wellness supports during COVID-19?
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“To me, the hidden curriculum is the little things — the off-side comments, the facial expressions. It’s trying to breed a certain type of physician in a culture that says physicians should be infallible.” – Alexandra Morra, fourth-year medical student
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"If we have a system where asking for help is not a normal part of medical training, it creates this perception that if you’re struggling and need help, it’s a weakness.” – Dr. Stephanie Klein
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Training Resilience Suicide Peer support Depression Burnout Stress
This guide helps people recognize signs of distress in physicians. These signs can vary, as distress manifests uniquely from person to person, but there are some common indicators. Approaching someone in distress can be uncomfortable, so the guide also offers practical recommendations for how to respond to medical professionals in distress, along with a comprehensive list of physician-specific resources as additional support.
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Mental health first aid (MHFA) is the help provided to a person developing a mental health problem or experiencing a mental health crisis. The Mental Health Commission of Canada’s MHFA program aims to improve mental health literacy and provide the skills and knowledge to help people better manage potential or developing mental health problems in themselves and others.
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The Understanding Stigma project looks at the ways health care providers may inadvertently stigmatize people with mental health and addiction problems. The free, self-directed course proposes strategies to help physicians identify and improve stigmatizing attitudes and behaviours, which will enhance patient–provider interactions and lead to better care for people with mental health and addictions problems. It is available in both official languages and consists of three modules: raising awareness, understanding the impacts of stigma, and challenging stigma and discrimination.
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Training Organizational wellness Equity and diversity in medicine Conflict management and prevention