Worrying About the Well-Being of Well-Being Leaders

• Published in: Academic psychiatry Vol. 47; no. 2; pp. 211 - 214
• Main Authors: Rea, Margaret M., Slavin, Stuart
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01-04-2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adaptation, Psychological; Anxiety - psychology; Burnout; Commentary; Depression (Psychology); Educational Environment; Graduate Medical Education; Humans; Individual Characteristics; Internal Medicine; Interpersonal Relationship; Leaders; Leadership; Leadership Role; Learning; Medical Education; Medical students; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Mental health; Mental Health Programs; Pandemics; Personality; Personality traits; Physicians; Professionals; Psychiatry; Psychological Characteristics; School environment; Stakeholders; Wellness
• ISSN: 1042-9670; 1545-7230
• DOI: 10.1007/s40596-023-01758-w

Concern about physician, resident, and medical student mental health and well-being has existed for more than a decade. Many medical schools have also identified individuals to not only manage mental health services for medical students, but to also oversee wellness initiatives and programming. [...]importantly, well-being leaders may face indifference, if not outright hostility, from those they are trying to serve, and they themselves can become the focal point, target, and scapegoat for existing systemic and learning environment issues. Accompanying this role may be a tendency not to seek emotional support and care from others as well as self-effacement, worrying about others’ needs, but not their own. Because of their position in the well-being sphere, they may also feel pressure to always appear happy and to be uniformly positive, regardless of how they are feeling.