TOTB-01: BUILDING RESILIENCY IN MEDICAL STUDENTS DURING CORE SURGICAL CLERKSHIP
Britta Han, BA, MSEd; University of Michigan Medical School

What problem in education is addressed by this work?:
In high stakes professions with elevated levels of burnout, such as medicine and surgery, there is more interest in increasing resilience among trainees. Increased resilience is often associated with improved professional and personal outcomes and is thought to help combat burnout. However, few medical education institutions have developed an explicit curriculum to teach resilience to trainees.

Describe the intervention:
Third-year medical students from a single institution engaged in a series of group discussions intended to improve resiliency. Using the concept of "psychological safety," the surgical clerkship director, as a team leader, met with students during their six-week core surgery clerkship. Discussions focused on (1) the director sharing personal experiences related to resilience, and (2) creating space for students to safely share their own experiences. Students were invited to complete pre- and post-session online surveys.

Describe how this intervention could be applied at other institutions. Please specifically comment on identified barriers that could exist and how they could be overcome:
This curriculum could be easily adopted and tailored by any surgical clerkship director in an effort to explicitly teach and discuss resilience. There are no large barriers to application of this curriculum at another institutions. However, there will need to be continued collaboration and discussion about how best to measure and track changes to resilience in medical students.