Regents of the University of California San Francisco

Mindful Mental Training in Physicians: Stress Resilience and Well-being

Mindful Mental Training in Physicians: Stress Resilience and Wellbeing will demonstrate feasibility of a mindfulness-based CME intervention to promote stress resilience and wellbeing in practicing surgeons and anesthesiologists. This individual-based intervention is designed by and for physicians and stands on 18 months of relationship-building among physician department chairs, faculty and institutional leadership. While the goal is to hasten dissemination of resilience training by generating high quality evidence, the mission is to teach a novel skill that will allow all of us to reclaim the joy in our work.

We have developed a streamlined form of mindfulness training based on the proven efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, but modularized for more widespread use and, for this project, tailored to surgeons and anesthesiologists.  Training involves 1.5 hour classes, once per week for 6 weeks; a 2 hour retreat and daily home practice. We will collect pre-, post- and 6-month follow-up data on wellbeing, physiologic stress, cognitive function and performance.  Additionally, we will rigorously assess and monitor feasibility.

The data we will gather from this project will allow us to determine the feasibility of mindfulness training in a real-world setting and what role inherent mindfulness has in the resilience of practicing physicians.  If inherent mindfulness or mindfulness training prove protective in this longitudinal trial, we may also find that established scales of mindfulness can act as screening tools for identifying and reaching out to those of us at greatest risk.