Rethinking Physician Well-Being: Addressing Ableism and Improving Accessibility in Medicine
Dr. Michael Quon provided a talk about rethinking physician well-being: Addressing Ableism and Improving Accessibility in Medicine.
In this seminar, the speaker provide his reflections on the challenges of working with disability-facing structural ableism in medicine. He will highlight his leadership at The Ottawa Hospital and his advocacy with the Ontario Medical Association to raise awareness for physicians who require accommodations. He will demonstrate how ensuring an accommodating workplace is a pressing health issue that can affect us all.
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
Demonstrate the systemic and cultural barriers commonly faced by physicians living with disabilities
Examine the structural ableism in current physician well-being strategic plans
Identify organizational and individual opportunities to improve accessibility and inclusion in medicine
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Shame competence: What it is, why we need it, and how it can transform healthcare organizations?
Dr. William Bynum provided a talk about shameful competence: What is it, why do we need it and how can it transform healthcare organizations?”.
In this workshop, the speaker will introduce the concept of shame competence, a set of skills, principles, and practices that facilitate constructive engagement with shame, to participants.
He will outline the distributed nature of shame and the need for shame competence at multiple levels of an organization.
He will then engage participants through skills-building and discussion activities to build foundational shame competence. Specific skills will focus on recognizing hidden shame, avoiding shaming treatment, and providing proactive support to a learner experiencing shame.
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Define shame and outline its psychological origins
- Explain the distributed nature of shame in a healthcare organization
- Define shame competence and outline the basic principles that inform it
- List specific steps to building foundational shame competence in a healthcare environment
- Report increased comfort supporting a learner or peer through a shame experience
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Caring for the carers: Improving the psychological well-being of the health workforce
Professor Ivy Bourgeault provided a talk about Caring for the Carers: Improving the Psychological Well-being of the Health Workforce.
Professor Ivy Bourgeault shares data on the wellness of the health workforce from Statistics Canada's Canadian Community Health Survey and her Healthy Professional Workers project, as well as a series of profession-specific and agnostic toolkits to address mental health, burnout, and psychological health and safety of workers.
She also shares insights from using said toolkits across a range of mental health, primary care and tertiary care clinical sites and new work to be undertaken in long-term care settings.
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Discuss the range of mental health experiences of health professionals.
- List the different types of evidence-informed interventions to support the mental health of health workers fostering psychological health and safety.
- Identify and apply important considerations in the implementation of interventions to improve health worker wellness.
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Academic Accommodations and Universal Design for Learning
Get ready to learn about Academic accommodation. This recording offers a fantastic opportunity to expand your knowledge. Don't miss out on this exciting opportunity to gain valuable insights!
Please note that the speaker will alternate between French and English during the session.
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Cultivating Compassion and System Thinking to Transform Medicine
Dr. Agnes Wong provided a talk about Cultivating Compassion and System Thinking to Transform Medicine.
Based on the scientific principles of neuroplasticity, epigenetics, and inborn goodness, Dr. Wong will present the scientific evidence supporting compassion as both innate and trainable.
She discusses the difference between empathy and compassion, and explains why compassion fatigue is a misnomer. Contrary to common beliefs, compassion is an inexhaustible source of energy and resilience that acts as an antidote to burnout, which is a multi-faceted phenomenon.
She introduces system thinking to guide us to look deeply into the systemic and structural factors contributing to physician distress. By cultivating compassion and system thinking, we can transform both ourselves and the system so that we can all flourish in medicine and build a kinder, gentler society.
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- To discuss the scientific evidence affirming that compassion is both innate and a trainable skill.
- Develop system thinking skills so we can look deeply into the systemic and structural factors contributing to physician distress.
- Using these trainable skills to build inner resources and improve the healthcare system so we can flourish in medicine.
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Empowering your time: How to do more of what matters with less stress
Dr. Christina Shenvi provided a talk about empowering your time: How to do more of what matters with less stress.
Too often we are busy without being productive. Our days are full without being fulfilled. We have too much on our plates and not enough time for the things that matter most.
Managing your time is not just something you do, it's how you do everything in your life. When we think about time management, often things like task apps, calendars, and scheduling programs come to mind. However, good time management requires a much deeper understanding of our own minds. The reasons you procrastinate or avoid certain tasks go much deeper than just needing another app on your phone.
In this session, Dr. Shenvi use concepts that range from Stoic philosophy to modern educational psychology literature to explain why we avoid certain tasks and will give practical strategies to help you manage your time better with less stress.
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
- Decide intentionally what is most important for you.
- Planning your work with deep and shallow frameworks.
- Understanding how your emotions influence your work.
- The importance of reflection for continuous improvement.
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Narrative Medicine: Re-humanizing the practice of medicine
Dr. Regine Krechowicz provided a talk about Narrative Medicine as a discipline that integrates aspects of literary studies with the practice of medicine. The concept was developed by Internist Dr. Rita Charon at Columbia University as a response to a medical system of training and patient care that de-personalizes both patient and healthcare workers.
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
- Describe Narrative Medicine and understand how integrating it into your practice can build resilience
- Recognize the types of illness narratives told by patients and learn practical tips to better handle the most challenging narratives
- Learn how creative writing can help process difficult cases
- Get experience "doing" Narrative Medicine
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Medicine: Renovating Toxic Culture - Cultivating a Health Promoting Learning & Work Environment
Dr. Melanie Lewis, Chief Wellness Officer and Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Alberta provided a talk in which participants explored Occupational Hazards in Medicine: Addressing the Wellbeing Crisis.
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Identify the fertilizer and the pests in health-promoting learning and work environments.
- Illuminate the barriers to meaningful change in academic and clinical environments.
- Discuss the systemic and structural drivers of unhealthy learning and work environments.
- Review tangible interventions to support positive health outcomes and enhanced professional fulfillment for learners and clinicians.
Moral Injury and Moral Residue in Health Professionals Post-Pandemic: Shifting the Focus From Wellness and Burnout Towards Dealing with Moral Distress
Dr. Ed Spilg, provided a talk in which participants explored the latest evidence on moral distress and the impacts of health professionals during COVID-19 and what interventions can address these.
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Finding Joy at Work. From Languishing to Burnout to Flourishing and Everything in Between
Mankind's search for happiness is as old as recorded human history. From Aristotle to Freud all philosophers have an opinion regarding it. Blaise Pascal once said that even people who are trying to commit suicide are trying to be happier. Joy is similarly elusive and fleeting when experienced. Even before the pandemic, the WHO declared that depression was the leading cause of disability as of 2012 and an epidemic of the developed world. This was despite the fact that external stresses were diminishing; extreme poverty was on the decline, life expectancy was on the rise and other indicators of health were improving. Why, when external stressors were decreasing, were people experiencing increased internal stress? As we come out of this pandemic, the world has experienced a global threat unseen for over a century. What will the effects on our mental health be? What is the connection to work place mental health, productivity and job satisfaction? What is the connection between workplace engagement and joy at work? Is there such a thing as work life balance or does the concept of harmonics make more sense? What is the connection between mental health and mental wellness? Are they just two extremes of the same continuum or are they different things? Join Dr Lau as he will discuss possible answers to these and many other questions.