Wellness in medical education: definition and five domains for wellness among medical learners during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond

ABSTRACT

Problem: The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 disease (COVID-19) impacted medical learner well-being and serves as a unique opportunity to understand medical learner wellness. The authors designed a formal needs assessment to assess medical learners’ perspectives regarding distress related to disrupted training environments. This Rapid Communication describes findings from a qualitative study which defined medical learner wellness and validated five wellness domains.

Approach: We conducted follow-up telephone interviews to an online needs assessment survey to identify a learner definition for wellness and to validate five wellness domains, including social, mental, physical, intellectual, and occupational wellness. Using purposive and maximal variation sampling, 27 students were interviewed from July–August 2020. Thematic analysis was performed using a deductive thematic approach to qualitative analysis.

Outcomes: Medical learners defined wellness as a general [holistic] sense of personal well-being – the opportunity to be and to do what they most need and value. Learners validated all five wellness domains for medical education. Learners acknowledged the need for an adoptable and adaptable holistic framework for wellness in medical education.

Next steps: We recommend academic medical institutions consider learner wellness a key component of medical education to cultivate learners as a competent collective of self-reliant, scholarly experts. We encourage evaluation of wellness domains in diverse medical learner populations to identify feasible interventions potentially associated with improvements in medical learner wellness.

KEYWORDS:

• Medical learner
• wellness
• well-being
• medical education
• COVID-19

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all participants at the Cumming School of Medicine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

Ms. Cherak and Dr. Kassam had full access to all of the data in the study and take full responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Concept and design: Cherak, Kassam.

Data acquisition: Cherak, Kassam.

Data analysis or interpretation: Cherak, Rosgen, Geddes, Makuk, Sudershan, Peplinski.

Drafting of the manuscript: Cherak.

Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: Cherak, Rosgen, Geddes, Makuk, Sudershan, Peplinski, Kassam.

Obtained funding: Kassam.

Administrative, technical, or material support: Cherak.

Supervision: Kassam.

Ethical approval

Ethical approval for conduct of research in human subjects was granted from the University of Calgary Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board (REB20-0117).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Office of Postgraduate Medical Education and supported by the Office of the Senior Associate Dean of Education at the Cumming School of Medicine.