Ideas to Action: Using Curriculum Design to Develop a â•œRoadmap to Wellnessâ•š Curriculum

Physician burnout, first publicly discussed almost 40 years ago, has drawn increasing focus since its prevalence among physicians was published by Shanafelt et al. in 2012, and even more so in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic [1-2]. With the spotlight on burnout and its consequences, the concepts of physician wellness, well-being, resilience, and professional fulfillment are considered possible counters to burnout. Training physicians within all specialties in these areas seems critical to ending the problem of physician burnout; yet, creating a comprehensive and practical curriculum may initially seem overwhelming. It is important to distinguish wellness, which describes maintaining health through illness or obstacles, from well-being, which describes a more holistic condition of livelihood. Thus, well-being encompasses wellness and both terms provide important goals to strive towards. This white paper from the Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine (CORD) Resilience Committee Wellness Curriculum Subcommittee aims to provide faculty and institutions with a stepwise approach to develop an institution-specific wellness curriculum.