Resiliency and Medical Schools: Are Institutions Supporting Students?

by Tanya Giuliani, GCSOM, MBS2019
Mentor: Dr. Gabi Waite, PhD

 Please, watch Tanya'a video on the topic!

One of the most common thoughts to cross individuals’ minds when toying with the notion of medical school is the extensive level of difficulty associated with it. When we think about a medical student, we often paint a picture in our heads of some poor soul with tired eyes confined to a library for countless hours, surrounded by piles of books and empty coffee cups. The girth of new information that medical students are expected to retain in such a short time period while juggling aspects of their personal lives is often unfathomable. Students frequently report eating poorly-balanced meals, sleeping fewer hours, and participating in fewer physical activities due to the sheer lack of free time at their disposal shortly after entering medical school. Due to this consistent stress overload, the rates of depression, anxiety, burnout and suicide ideation among medical students continue to rise.

You may be thinking to yourself, well I’m not a medical student why should I care? You may not be, this is true. However, I am certain that you will depend on a doctor at some point in your life. Perhaps someone in your family is presently or is aspiring to become a doctor. These dire and dismal outcomes may affect your loved ones or potential future health care provider. As such, it stands to reason that we should be a little concerned. I developed particular interest in discerning what medical schools were doing, if anything, about this topic as a means to promote the present and future well-being of their students.

In response to this issue, many medical schools and researchers have sought to identify traits attributable to medical students that if present, allow them to fare better in stressful or less than ideal situations. One such trait thought to do so is resilience. Resilience is often defined as the ability to overcome difficult situations quickly, or as a measure of one’s ability to bounce back. In order to test this theory of sorts, many medical schools have been making leaps to incorporate either resiliency-building training in their medical education curriculum as a required or optional component. Other schools directly stress the importance of resilience in merely a single lecture while some fail to address the topic in any manner. 

It should come as comforting news to interested readers that in many instances when resiliency-building wasn’t found to be a pertinent goal for certain schools, establishing programs within the curriculum or via other means centered on maintaining student well-being was paramount. As such, it can be declared with confidence that a significant portion of medical schools care about the psychological, emotional, and mental well-being of their students. Institutions with programs such as this offer students the opportunity to take yoga or dance classes, participate in pet therapy, enjoy mindfulness workshops and classes, and even enroll in classes such as healer’s art and Spanish.

As far as the efficacy of such programs (i.e., are they working), whether wellness centered or focused on resiliency-building, many institutions have yet to declare their overall student benefit. At schools such Mayo Clinic, reviews following undergoing resiliency training program were mixed. Some students found the techniques addressed applicable to their everyday lives while other felt that the program was counterintuitive. The latter students noted that undergoing training robbed them of study time and induced even more stress. Yet at Vanderbilt School of Medicine, medical students have reported feeling a greater sense of calm and happiness following program participation.

Ultimately it is too soon to confirm whether or not resiliency-building and/or wellness initiatives implemented in medical school truly do reduce incidences of depression, burnout, anxiety or suicide-ideation. However, there is profound hope and reason to believe that schools are advancing in the correct direction by merely instituting alterations. Although I would love to see all schools expressing concern for their students well-being and ability to cope in stressful situations, I am quite pleased at the number who feverishly are. Future research conducted by institutions with programs in place will immensely aid in determining the value and benefit associated with them.