An internal medicine residency’s response to the COVID-19 crisis: caring for our residents while caring for our patients

• Main Authors: Stephanie Detterline, Heather Hartman-Hall, Katherine Garbow, Himanshu Rawal, David Blackwood, Gregory Nizialek, Zayd Nashaat
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2020-11-01
• Series: Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives
• Subjects: covid-19; pandemic; well-being; crisis response; resident stress; burnout prevention
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20009666.2020.1807218

Background In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, internal medicine residencies have had to develop new teaching strategies and attend to wellness concerns. Providing front-line care for patients in a time of widespread crisis while maintaining attention to training has created unprecedented challenges. Objective Our large community hospital based internal medicine residency sought to develop and evaluate a crisis response to the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic to meet our residents’ educational and wellness needs. Methods In March 2020, our residency developed a crisis plan for functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic. A brief survey was sent via email to our 149 residents to obtain their evaluation of how well their needs were being met by this response. Results 92 (62%) residents completed the survey. 88% indicated their well-being needs were well met. Other components were also rated as successful: effective communication (86%), scheduling/staffing (78%), preparing residents for clinical service (77%), and educational needs (76%). Conclusions Our residency crisis response to the COVID-19 pandemic was favorably evaluated by our residents in meeting their training and well-being needs. In future work we plan to seek longer-term and more objective measures to assess how residents fare during these challenging times, and to use lessons learned to prepare for future crisis situations.