Supporting a Culture of Wellness: Examining the Utility of the Residency Program Community Well-Being Instrument in the Medical Training and Work Environment

Abstract

Physicians are experiencing symptoms of burnout at unprecedented rates. It is essential to assess programmatic factors contributing to physician burnout as actionable items for work climate improvement. Creation of an evidence base of strategies and methods to cultivate a culture of wellness requires iterative assessment, program development and implementation, and evaluation. To serve their function optimally, assessment tools need to be reliable, valid, and sensitive to change. In this Invited Commentary, the authors discuss Vermette and colleagues’ report on the Residency Community Well-Being (RCWB) instrument. The authors examine the utility of the RCWB, a novel, validated tool that quantifies the subjective community well-being of an individual residency program and has 3 subscales that measure key aspects of interpersonal interactions among residents, with emphasis on those within the program leadership sphere of influence. The commentary authors recommend further validation of the RCWB, but acknowledge the instrument is a useful contribution to currently available measures in the domains of community well-being, workplace climate, and culture of wellness. Workplace interventions focused on community well-being or culture of wellness are particularly salient ethical and educational priorities for medical training programs. Prioritizing community well-being will help nurture trainees as an investment in the future of medical care, rather than an exploitable resource valued primarily for short-term work demands.