Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Department of Medicine
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Resident Wellness

Resident well-being is one of our utmost priorities. Balancing well-being with the demands of residency education are a challenge we tackle through numerous efforts.

  • Residency Professional Development is a large component of wellness and the themes of our full day Intern Retreat and half-day PGY2 Retreat. Topics in these sessions include finding work-life balance, self-awareness, dealing with imposter syndrome, developing resilience and more. In addition to our retreats, we offer several noon conference lectures on well-being under this theme. We also do faculty development with our core residency educators so they can provide one on one advising and mentoring. Finally, women in our program have a unique set of retreats as part of our Women’s Professional Development (WPD) series that have been ongoing since 2016.
  • Social Bonding is in the fabric of our residency. Our residents and faculty love to spend time together. Our retreats, intern academic half-days, recruitment season events and WPD series all have meals and social events attached to them. It is intentional to help us get to know each other and have fun! Outside of formal events, our chief residents host numerous social gatherings including "liver rounds" (residents get together every month for drinks), trivia nights, intramural sports (kickball, volleyball, etc), and faculty v resident basketball games. We also assign each resident into a "firm" which consists of PGY1, PGY2, and PGY3 residents, one chief resident, and several attendings of various specialties. We have friendly competitions between the firms as well as firm dinners to help facilitate relationships between different classes as well as with their firm staff for further mentorship and community.
    To see more of our residents, check out our instagram @northwestern_im or twitter @NU_IntMed, @NUIM_Chiefs
  • Mental Health and General Health Resources are well supported by the McGaw/GME benefits plan. There are multiple free mental health support options offered for acute needs and long term needs. Residents are supported for any personal needs. See the McGaw website for details, including family leave for new parents.
  • Program Improvement with Resident Leadership is critical to resident wellness. Our program leadership, chief residents and coordinators promote a culture of openness and seek feedback through survey, focus groups and townhalls regularly. The residency has four key committees (wellness, curriculum, health equity and advocacy, and quality improvement).

We have two dedicated core faculty for wellness, Dr. Maria Theodorou and Dr. Boye Ogunseitan. We also have one of our chief residents area of focus in wellbeing. Our commitment to resident well-being is successful in that we understand it requires constant attention, adaptability, leadership and keeping the residents at the center of the conversation.