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Christina Le, Well-being as a shared responsibility, American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 2024;, zxae386, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajhp/zxae386
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I was eager to read the publication by Mott and colleagues1 on creating a structured well-being committee, the MedStar Health Pharmacy Residency Committee (MHPRC), for pharmacy residents. Real-world experience with formal initiatives to support pharmacy resident well-being continues to be lacking, and any additions to this body of research are significant and welcome. The host of resources offered by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, including a dedicated website, a resource guide, and the Well-Being Ambassador Program, is certainly bridging this gap, but home-grown programs such as the MHPRC are necessary to drive the ongoing pursuit of resident well-being forward. While reading about the activities of and resident involvement in the MHPRC, a few observations caught my attention.
Although I appreciated that residents were granted protected time to partake in the MHPRC, they were still required to plan and meet on their own time for the Residency Buddies program. Mandated meetings could confer extra responsibility and stress, hindering the formation of meaningful connections between residents often already overburdened with multiple competing deadlines. While it is true that lack of community is a risk factor for burnout,2 those in residency leadership should consider the associated opportunity cost and investigate whether other methods may produce the same or better benefit with less risk to resident well-being. Residents also planned and participated in multiple community service events throughout the year, which poses a threat of becoming another checklist item for the residents to finish. At my own institution, we attempted to have each resident lead a wellness talk but discovered that the required presentations proved counterproductive; the series was terminated early due to fears of exacerbating resident stress. We, like other residency programs, struggle to define feasible modalities to improve well-being and resilience without placing the onus on the residents themselves and within the confines of dedicated residency time.
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