Increasing Resident Wellness Through a Novel Retreat Curriculum

Background Because of their arduous schedules, residents are susceptible to burnout, fatigue, and depression. In 2015, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) launched a campaign to foster physician wellness, in response to the suicides of three residents during the previous year. The campaign calls for strategies to developing resiliency, identify problems, and promote well-being. One of the suggested methods to promote well-being was a residency retreat. Objective To implement a novel retreat curriculum that emphasizes team building between residents and faculty, with which residents expressed high satisfaction. Methods We created an "Amazing Race" style retreat involving five activity stations set up in a neighborhood park in which 25 of our 34 residents participated. These stations implemented team building, faculty-resident bonding and resident-resident bonding. An anonymous survey was administered to the 25 participating emergency medicine (EM) residents after the retreat, of whom 21 returned the survey. The survey consisted of questions to assess the resident’s perception of the team building activities, their satisfaction with each of the five activity stations and overall retreat satisfaction. Results Of the 25 residents who participated in the retreat, 21 (84%) returned the post-retreat survey (one participant returned a survey leaving the ranking questions incomplete). This low-cost event received high satisfaction ratings in regard to team-building, resident bonding, and faculty-resident bonding. Conclusions This novel retreat proved to be a low-cost and easily implemented activity with which the residents expressed high levels of satisfaction.