Medical Students Share Enthusiasm for Innovative Program
Q&A With FMIG Well-being Champions
Jan. 23, 2024, Cindy Borgmeyer — For an initiative that’s only been around a couple of years, the AAFP’s Family Medicine Interest Group Well-being Champion program has made quite a splash in medical schools around the country. The program is designed to give students selected to participate the skills they need to create a culture of well-being at their respective institutions and increase joy during their current program of study and, later, in practice.
Each yearly cohort of FMIG Well-being Champions works with Catherine Pipas, M.D., M.P.H., FAAFP, professor of community and family medicine at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice and the Geisel School of Medicine and well-being co-chair of the Academy’s Leading Physician Well-being program, to develop workshops on topics related to finances, resiliency, relationships, substance use prevention, burnout prevention, and suicide awareness and prevention. The champions then turn around and present the sessions to their medical school peers. Previous champions serve as mentors to those who follow them. Although students don’t have to be involved with their school’s family medicine student organization to be selected, they do have to be AAFP members.
In addition to presenting at their individual schools, each cohort of champions has a number of opportunities to present their sessions nationally. One such session is coming up fast, so grab some friends and make plans now to join a live webinar, Introduction to Recognizing and Averting Burnout, from 7 to 8 p.m. CT on Jan. 29.
Meanwhile, AAFP News recently asked two current champions, Dana Shefet and Megan Hanley, to talk about their time in the program and how it has impacted their perspective on well-being throughout a physician’s entire medical career. Here is an edited version of what they shared.
Dana Shefet is an M.D. candidate in East Carolina University’s Brody School Medicine Class of 2025. A native of Cary, N.C., she completed her undergraduate studies at ECU. She was named a Brody Scholar in 2021 and has served as president of her school’s family medicine interest group, as well as of the Brody Ambassadors Mentorship Program, which helps connect ECU undergraduate students with medical student mentors. As a participant in the school’s Service-Learning Distinction Track, Shefet has pursued various service activities and completed enrichment programming related to service-learning and epidemiology. After completing a capstone project as part of the track activities, she will earn a Rural Health Disparities certificate at graduation. Shefet also has served as physician recruitment coordinator for the Pitt County Care Clinic, a free medical student-led clinic that serves the citizens of Pitt County.
Megan Hanley is an M.D. candidate in the Albany Medical College Class of 2026. She is currently interested in family medicine and OB/Gyn. Originally from California, Hanley attended the University of Washington in Seattle for her undergraduate studies. Her passion for well-being stems from having worked in a partial inpatient mental health facility during her gap years and the COVID-19 pandemic, where she weathered personal and professional challenges. Hanley says she learned that in order to hold compassion and provide patient-centered care, she had to prioritize her own well-being. She has carried that passion for well-being forward into her medical school journey, where she is now an AAFP Well-being Champion as well as FMIG vice president of student wellness for her school and president of the Student Wellness Committee at Albany Medical College.
What prompted you to apply to become an FMIG Well-being Champion? What factors did you consider when making your decision?
DS: I received an email from our family medicine clerkship director. I was family medicine interest group president at the time for our school, and she thought this opportunity would be a good next leadership step for me. She also knew that I was a big advocate for mental health and that I wanted to be able to do that in the family medicine space. I thought the goals of this program aligned well with what I’ve always hoped to do in my future practice. “We can’t really care for our patients without caring for ourselves” is my motto, and being able to spread that message within my school is very important to me.
MH: I spent two years working as a nursing assistant in a psychiatric partial hospitalization program facility before medical school, so I knew mental health was a really important focus for me both personally and professionally. I saw the FMIG Well-being Champion program as an opportunity to bring my passion for well-being to my peers and highlight the importance of mental health throughout medical training.
Dana Shefet
Megan Hanley
How have your school’s faculty and peers supported you?
DS: The level of support I’ve received has been wonderful. In terms of support from my actual medical school, I was able to create a well-being elective in order to allow me to go to the National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students, so they’ve been flexible with me in terms of timing. They’ve been good with publicity for events to students, helping me get funding for food, enticing students to come, and encouraging student participation in programs that I run and encouraging involvement in the North Carolina level, as well. And they’ve been willing to work with me on going to other conferences, like the well-being conference that happened last year in Palm Springs, they were flexible in terms of knowing that I'd be able to learn resources to bring back and are working with me to be able to go to the one this upcoming year in Arizona.
MH: The family medicine department at Albany Medical College has been so incredibly supportive in my role as an FMIG Well-Being Champion and has helped increase the focus on well-being within our college. Department faculty and leadership have made sure events are open to all and that all students feel welcome, regardless of their involvement in family medicine, because well-being is essential in every field of medicine. Many of my peers have been so helpful and excited to see well-being become a strong focus. Their support has included offering to help with events, encouraging friends to attend, and working to improve well-being in other departments, as well.
Has it been challenging to fit the champions program requirements into your schedule? How have you handled that process?
DS: My school has been very supportive, and the requirements are also not very strenuous. The AAFP is willing to work with students to make it best for them; they know we have to work with students where they’re at, and the whole program has been very accommodating with that. I think that’s huge — that they know our schedules aren’t really our own and have been very understanding in allowing us to run the program how it works for our schedules.
MH: Since well-being was already a strong focus of mine, it was a relatively easy adjustment to fit the requirements of the program into my schedule. Becoming a well-being champion helped motivate me to keep well-being a priority, even at times when my schedule felt overloaded. This program and the peers and faculty I have the pleasure of working with through the AAFP remind me that it is beneficial to take time for myself, especially when I am feeling the most pressure not to.
Can you name an “Aha!” moment you experienced during your training that shifted your perspective on personal and/or professional well-being?
DS: My “aha” moment was that the AAFP does not do the well-being program to promote going into family medicine to students, they care about promoting well physicians and mentally healthy and capable physicians. That was the driving factor — that “take care of ourselves to take care of others” idea, whether that be in family medicine or not — for me to use that momentum to encourage students that I am not pushing family medicine on them; I’m pushing that these are the goals of family medicine as well, and that they’re able to have this environment in family medicine, but at the end of the day, the goal of the well-being program is to promote wellness for all medical students. That’s something that made me love family medicine even more. I had never seen programs run like this on a national level, programs that care about the mental health of medical students and about helping to prevent burnout before we get to that phase of our medical career. This national organization is putting trust and empowerment in students to prevent future burnout and for the wellness of medical students, which I don't think is happening in any other organization in other fields.
MH: Attending the Physician Health and Well-being Conference in the spring of 2023, there was a moment where I realized I was feeling pure joy. I was walking down a hallway between sessions, and I was smiling and felt truly happy and at peace for the first time in a while. And it wasn’t because I was suddenly away from the stressors of medical school — I was acutely aware of the studying I would have to do to make up for being away for four days. I realized that the difference was how intentional I was about my well-being, and that by taking a small amount of time out of my day to be more intentional, I could see big changes in the way I view and approach difficult situations.
What has it meant to you to be able to turn around and present sessions on well-being to your student colleagues? What have you found most rewarding about that experience?
DS: I like public speaking and I like presenting. I think I was most successful doing the suicide prevention program for our medical students; I led that during suicide prevention and awareness month in September. The most rewarding part is that sometimes students hear this from people who are past their training years, and hearing things from your peers can have more meaning and be more impactful. You’re able to create that space for open dialog where you don’t feel that you’re being judged by your professor, who could be writing your letter of recommendation, or that it could impact your academic standing. It’s an equal playing field and we’re able to have very good dialog about physician suicide awareness. We had about 25 students come out for that dialog, and we had a lot of good commentary afterward, with students wanting to get more involved.
MH: I have always enjoyed teaching, but teaching about well-being specifically was more rewarding than I anticipated. My first session was more intimate, and we were able to take the time to share ideas about well-being and little anecdotes. It gave me the opportunity to get to know some of my peers on a deeper level and served as a reminder that we all have faced different hardships on our paths, and we have all learned to overcome them to get where we are today.
What is your biggest takeaway from the FMIG Well-being Champion program?
DS: I think a big takeaway is that we’re able to make changes in medical school mental health with the resources and opportunities through AAFP — and having the support of people like (program lead) Dr. Pipas and other people in the program encourages students to know that we’re able to actually make a difference and gives us the tools that we need to help our classmates. The changes don’t happen all at once, but you need to have those small moments — you need a lot of reminders — to get people thinking about the importance of mental health so we can flip the system of the mental health toxicity that occurs in medical school and get one step closer to being able to make the changes we need.
MH: Take the time to learn how to recognize your needs and warning signals, and how to care for yourself now. Things will only get more intense and medical training continues, and there’s never a perfect time to start to improve yourself. You have to find your joy while you do the hard things.
Would you recommend the program to your colleagues? What would be your elevator speech for doing that?
DS: I would definitely recommend it. I think ensuring that mental health is aligned with our values is something that was very important to me. So, this program fit perfectly in that regard. If you are interested in the mental health space of all medical students, no matter the field they go into, and ensuring that your school promotes this supportive environment, this program would be something really positive to incorporate.
MH: I think the Well-being Champion program should be instituted at every medical school, and that the larger discussions about burnout and wellness need to start early in training. The presentations we have created provide a brief yet holistic overview into different aspects of wellness, burnout and how we handle the stressors of medical training. This program gives students the communication and leadership skills, educational materials, and confidence they need to bring their passion about well-being to life and start to make changes to a medical training model that is harsh and can be harmful.
Medical schools or med students who would like to learn more about the program are invited to contact Nicole Johnson at njohnson@aafp.org.