Welcome to Wellness in Action

This summer I have the privilege of working in the Department of Population Medicine at OVC. I’m doing research on methods to improve resilience in veterinary students, in the form of a literature review. This has involved a massive search and reading papers every day for almost a month in order to find out what research has been done that is shown to work in people in health professions related to veterinary medicine (human physicians, medical students, nurses, nursing students etc.). There has been limited research done directly on veterinary students and veterinarians, so we are hoping to extrapolate from similar populations.  The skills I’m looking at are things that can be taught and used to improve well-being and increase resilience to protect against some of the negative mental health outcomes that are so common in our field, like burnout, compassion fatigue, depression and anxiety. This way it can supplement (not replace!) the professional resources that are available at school, such as counselling.

I also have a unique opportunity to start using my findings to help provide input on curriculum surrounding resilience and well-being. It’s not too often in research that you get to see some immediate action, but I’m not taking it for granted. My hope coming into a summer research position was to make a difference – so I’m going to try my best to do this.

The idea of doing a blog series came to me in the middle of my reading. The idea was simple: try out some of the techniques or methods that I was reading about and share my own experiences with how beneficial it is, how easy is it to do in every day life, and what it actually feels like to practice the things I’m going to recommend.

Even the literature backs this idea up, for a few reasons:

• One of the most powerful things is a shared experience – simply knowing that you are not alone and other people have the same feelings/struggles/reactions. For example, some doctors report that even just knowing that other doctors are seeking workshops on things like self-care made a difference in their attitudes towards getting help or wanting to change their habits.
• Sometimes, you only need to hear that something worked for someone else, in order to want to try it yourself.
• Turning “intent” into “action” is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to taking care of your well-being, so I thought I would lead by example and start a conversation my own personal experience with it.

I’ve been working away in the cafeteria at school, which I enjoy because I get to talk with other vet students and members of the OVC community on the daily. I like getting to share some of the stuff I’m learning and hearing what others think. Starting a dialogue is a powerful first step.

The statistic that has stuck with me the most, is from a study in JAMA, by Schwenk, Davis and Wimsatt. They found that students with depression were significantly more likely to perceive a stigma about mental health than students that did not suffer from depression. To me, this indicates that even if you aren’t discriminatory or judgmental towards people with mental health problems, if you are silent about it, they will still feel stigmatized.

So in order to try and start a conversation, take action and start advocating, I’m going to try some of the evidence-based techniques I’ve been reading about.

Methods: I’ll try to do each technique every day for a week, and check back in with my self-report. Hopefully each skill will build on each other in a logical order.

Up first: Reflection! Check in next Wednesday to hear why it’s useful and how it works.

References:

Schwenk TL, Davis L, Wimsatt LA. Depression, Stigma, and Suicidal Ideation in Medical Students. JAMA. 2010;304(11):1181-1190. doi:10.1001/jama.2010.1300.