New Resilience Council for School of Medicine

June 2015

​Whether you’re new to health care or have been in the role for many years, working on the front line helping patients move forward from traumatic situations can take its toll. Left unchecked, this kind of job-related stress could negatively affect patient experience, safety and health care quality, as well as provider job satisfaction and career success.

Recently, a Resilience Council was established to help School of Medicine faculty, residents, and fellows build resilience, boost well-being and mitigate burnout. (Pictured, left to right:front row: Tim Garrington, Laura Zapapas, Adria Boucharel, Jenny Reese; back row: Alison Brainard, Joe Grubenhoff, Angie Miller, Read Pierce, Cindy Morris, Antonia Chiesa)

“Resilience is the capacity to respond to stress in a healthy way,” said Jenny Reese, MD, director of inpatient medicine at Children’s Hospital Colorado and member of the Resilience Council. “It’s about being able to bounce back from challenging events and being able to learn from them and grow stronger.”

The Resilience Council is a joint collaboration across departments of the School of Medicine and has several aims:

to connect those interested in resilience work and develop a central repository for the work,

to develop a network of support and

to provide resources such as workshops, self-help tools and details of community resources.

The website for the Resilience Council is set to launch soon and will be housed on the School of Medicine Faculty ​Affairs​ website. For now, however, Dr. Reese is requesting that anyone in the School of Medicine currently undertaking resilience work or interested in being involved get in touch.

“We have developed a brief six-question survey and would like to know about all current work related to resilience and well-being for physicians, advance practice providers, PhD/researchers, fellows or residents affiliated with the School of Medicine,” she said. “If you or someone you know currently runs a program or research related to the topic of resilience, well-being, burnout prevention etc., please complete our survey.”

To access the Resilience Council survey and contribute to better outcomes for patients and providers alike, please click here.​