2534. Development of an Infectious Diseases Fellowship Well-Being Program

Abstract

BackgroundBurnout in graduate medical education is common and reported in ~70% of Internal Medicine (IM) residents. Most studies have described interventions focused on residency training, but fellowship training suffers from similar challenges and likely similar levels of burnout. After conducting a needs assessment amongst fellows within our Infectious Diseases (ID) fellowship program, we developed a wellness program to address these issues.MethodsIn Spring 2018, we reviewed the existing literature and consulted with local experts on trainee well-being. Based on our findings, we designed a multi-tiered approach to enhance wellness amongst fellows. An ID Fellowship Well-Being Committee (WBC) was created in September 2018 to lead the intervention. The WBC includes an even mix of fellows and faculty at multiple levels at all three main teaching hospitals associated with the program. Meetings occur every other month, and co-chairs (one faculty and one fellow) report back to the program director quarterly. Topic areas and interventions are described in Table 1. Fellows were sent a qualitative survey to evaluate the impact of the well-being interventions to date.ResultsFour of 5 first year fellows responded to the survey, and all felt the retreat should be repeated yearly. Themes identified from the survey included benefits of having protected time together, convening in a low pressure and informal setting to provide feedback, and spending quality time in a non-clinical setting with co-fellows. Fellows cited the wellness retreat as a strength at our annual fellowship external program review.ConclusionBurnout is likely high among IM sub-specialty fellows, and interventions are needed to support the well-being of those trainees. We describe a roadmap for the development of a well-being program at a relatively large, academic ID fellowship program led by a mixed fellow and faculty committee. We will continue to monitor data on fellow burnout and make programmatic changes based on feedback. We are hopeful that our work will empower other programs to engage in developing their own well-being programs. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.