Resident Health and Wellness
MUN Faculty of Medicine and the OBGYN department truly values the wellness of our staff and learners. OBGYN can be draining physically and emotionally. We all try to watch out for each other. Dr. Patti Power is our faculty wellness representative and is a Director of Wellbeing and Succes at the Faculty of Medicine. We also have a resident wellness representative and currently this is Dr. Sarah Benson. Throughout the year both informally and formally we have touch points for residents and staff. We organize wellness events and have an annual resident wellness retreat out of town.
More formally, the Faculty of Medicine has a Fatigue Risk Management Policy for residents and Learner Wellbeing and Success offers support and counselling to any resident who reaches out. There is a wellness consultant whose primary focus is postgraduate support. Faculty of Medicine also has a postgraduate wellness network that brings faculty and resident reps together quarterly to share ideas about how to best serve the wellness needs of the residents.
All in all, we do our best to keep everyone as happy and as healthy as possible!
Dr. Patricia Power
Improving wellness has been a focus of many residency groups within Memorial University. The OBGYN department is no exception! We have made a special effort by taking resident feedback to implement tangible changes within our program. Most notably, we are moving towards eliminating 24-hour call by implementing a night float system. The goal is to improve fatigue risk management to optimize learning potential for our residents. In addition, there are formalized mental health supports within Memorial University including a 24/7 free mental health support line, and both on and offsite counselling provided at a reduced rate. As a smaller residency body, the ease of creating interpersonal friendship with staff and co-residents is of great value in our program. The staff have even gone so far as to cover call so all the residents can enjoy our cabin summer retreat, winter resident retreat and wellness day! Written by PGY4 – Dr. Sarah Benson.