COVID-19: Staying Well in the Pandemic

Some of us are on the frontlines in the fight against COVID-19. Some are in the background, trying to keep our health system operating at peak efficiency. Others struggle with feeling sidelined, doing their part by remaining home to reduce community spread, yet wanting to find other ways to help. Wherever we find ourselves, we are united by a desire to respond to the pandemic. But for all of us that desire is accompanied by stresses and strains. These are unique to each person and each situation, but they are real and we can’t simply push our way through them or pretend they don’t exist. 

We know supporting wellness — emotional and physical — is an essential element in fostering the high performing, respectful and sustainable community we seek in the Faculty of Medicine. This was emphasised when, in the course of developing the Faculty of Medicine’s Academic Strategic Plan, “wellness in everything we do” was identified as one of our overarching goals. You have previously heard about steps the Faculty is taking to address learner wellbeing, and you will soon hear about new efforts to address wellbeing for administrative and technical staff. Today, we want to talk about wellbeing for our faculty. In our current environment, where challenges to faculty wellbeing come from multiple sources, this is a particularly urgent topic.  

As a result of COVID-19, we have sped up implementing some planned new initiatives and have also identified new strategies required to respond to this pandemic. For example, one of us (Julie) is the new COVID Faculty Wellness Coordinator and is chairing a COVID Clinical Faculty Wellness Working Group. With the support of this working group, the Faculty of Medicine is launching a faculty resource navigation service: faculty members will be able to call or email to get immediate information about resources available to them during the pandemic. Professor Bonnie Kirsh is chairing a Basic/Rehabilitation Science Wellness Working Group that will support the unique needs of these communities.  

In addition, with the support of the Faculty’s Continuing Professional Development team, both working groups are supporting the launch of a Faculty Wellness Webinar Series that will feature a broad range of webinars including: healing moral distress, psychological first aid, equity and diversity issues during the pandemic, financial wellbeing during and after the pandemic, and exercise and nutrition during COVID-19. The series launches on April 30 with Professors Allison Crawford and Sanjeev Sockalingam discussing the mental health distress experienced by healthcare workers during the different phases of the pandemic.  

Maintaining wellness in the midst of this pandemic is critical, though challenging. It’s important to us and our loved ones, but also essential to our ability to deliver care to our patients and support our learners. Our ability to rely on supportive professional relationships at work — to lean on each other and to feel valued — is an essential element. During these stressful times, we know from personal experience that exhaustion and frustration can overwhelm us, and that our professional relationships have the potential to fray as a consequence.  

Stemming from a series of conversations with colleagues about this risk, we took the notion of Personal Protective Equipment — which is critical to ensuring our physical wellbeing — and (led by Pier) developed the concept of Protective Professional Relationships (PPR). Underpinning PPR is the recognition that psychological safety, alongside personal safety, saves lives. In consultation with a team of experts in the field, we developed Ten Tips on Supporting PPR for Faculty, supported by Professors Molyn Leszcz, Jon Hunter, Bob Maunder and Joy Albuquerque. We hope that you will be able to find time to not only review these tips, but to put them into practice. 

A pandemic is exactly when we need each other the most. As we respond to COVID-19, we have an opportunity to strengthen the norms in our professional relationships that help us care for one another. The one thing we know for sure is this pandemic will eventually end. Let’s work together to ensure that when COVID-19 does end, our professional relationships and wellness are stronger.  

We are in this together.  

Pier Bryden
Director, Professional Values 

Julie Maggi
COVID Faculty Wellness Coordinator
Director, Postgraduate Wellness Office