The AAP Resilience in the Face of Grief and Loss Curriculum

Abstract

A career in pediatrics can bring great joy and satisfaction. It can also be challenging and lead some providers to manifest burnout and depression. A curriculum designed to help pediatric health providers acquire resilience and adaptive skills may be a key element in transforming times of anxiety and grief into rewarding professional experiences. The need for this curriculum was identified by the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Medical Students, Residents and Fellowship Trainees. A working group of educators developed this curriculum to address the professional attitudes, knowledge, and skills essential to thrive despite the many stressors inevitable in clinical care. Fourteen modules incorporating adult learning theory were developed. The first 2 sections of the curriculum address the knowledge and skills to approach disclosure of life-altering diagnoses, and the second 2 sections focus on the provider's responses to difficult patient care experiences and their needs to develop strategies to maintain their own well-being. This curriculum addresses the intellectual and emotional characteristics patient care medical professionals need to provide highquality, compassionate care while also addressing active and intentional ways to maintain personal wellness and resilience. Drs Serwint, Bostwick, Burke, Church, Gogo, Hofkosh, King, Linebarger, McCabe, Moon, Osta, Rana, Sahler, and Smith conceptualized the curriculum, wrote portions of the curriculum, reviewed and revised the curriculum, and reviewed and revised the manuscript; Ms Rivera served as the AAP staff member who assisted with the creation of the curriculum, provided feedback, uploaded the curriculum to the AAP Web site, and reviewed and revised the manuscript; Dr Baldwin served as a copy editor and assisted with the development of the curriculum, in review of the modules and categorizing content, and reviewed and revised the manuscript; and all authors approved the fi nal manuscript as submitted.

A Curriculum to Enhance Resilience in Internal Medicine Interns

“…resilience curriculum to assist in the development of skill-building exercises. 7,[11][12][13][14] The 60-to 90-minute sessions were presented during the dedicated ambulatory educational halfdays for interns. Standard residency program infrastructure was used for logistics, and no additional funding was required to implement the curriculum.…”

“…11,12 The American Academy of Pediatrics developed a resilience curriculum for medical students, faculty, and residents, but no assessment data have been reported to date. 13 We designed a resilience curriculum for internal medicine (IM) interns and assess the impact. In this article, we describe the curriculum design, our experience, and initial outcomes.…”

The Implementation of a National Multifaceted Emergency Medicine Resident Wellness Curriculum Is Not Associated With Changes in Burnout

“…The Collaborative for Healing and Renewal in Medicine (CHARM), supported by the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM) is a clearinghouse for learner wellness resources and scholarly activity . The American Academy of Pediatrics has developed a 14 module curriculum concentrating on the disclosure of life‐altering diagnoses, provider's response to challenging patient care experiences, and provider resilience . The Pediatric Resident Burnout and Resilience Study Consortium is a collaboration of over 40 pediatric and medicine–pediatric training programs, with the aim of developing and studying best practices to prevent and mitigate burnout in pediatric residents .…”

“…Well‐being interventions will be better received if they are personalized and encouraged but voluntary, respect the already high time burden on residents and opportunity costs of introducing new curricular elements, consider the culture of each program and resources of the institution, draw from a menu of possibilities, engage residents in the development and implementation of initiatives, and importantly target both the learning and the work environments as well as the individual . National platforms of resources, specialty specific or through organizations such as the ACGME, include standardized needs assessment surveys, well‐being interventions, and implementation guidelines …”

Bereavement care in Japanese pediatrics: Pediatrician awareness in practice

“…In 2012, the American Academy of Pediatrics provided guidelines for pediatricians on the support of families who lose their children, and the importance of supporting parents and siblings who lose their family member was emphasized. Furthermore, these guidelines required doctors to grieve over a child's death and showed that educational and psychological support for the doctors encountering child death is important . Therefore, it is important to promote self‐care for grief as well as to enhance education with regard to child death and bereavement care, so that individuals do not suffer from the mental and physical burdens associated with child death or bereavement care.…”