Taking Care of All of Ourselves

At the end of last year, I had the opportunity to go on a dream trip for three weeks to Australia and New Zealand. It is something I have wanted to do for years and it truly lived up to my expectations. I returned rejuvenated. Unfortunately, getting away is not always the most convenient and cost-effective rejuvenation plan and, sometimes, we have to consider what is right here available to us. In addition to my own resilience, I think about the team of people who have been working tirelessly with me and could also use a moment to refocus. Through the Office of Well-being, we discovered Kitchen Therapy and our entire administrative team within the SOM educational building were invited to take advantage of this resource in August.

The administrative team within the SOM educational building includes the members of admissions, grant operation, medical education, outreach, and student affairs.  We all spend 8-10 hours daily working here during the week and some come in on the weekend to have quiet time to focus and manage outreach programs. We are focused and driven to ensure that the educational program runs well, is appropriately supported, and has the resources that are needed. We work daily to ensure that our processes are clear and straightforward and that the students and faculty have a well-coordinated schedule. We strategize for the continued excellence of the program and future possibilities. We engage in national organizations and committees to ensure we know what is currently happening and evolving in medical education. This team does a LOT.

This high functioning team also spends a lot of time together and has a number of meals while at work. It seems appropriate that we would choose to engage in a Kitchen Therapy activity. We spent part of an afternoon learning and preparing some healthy snacks with the team from the Office of Well-being. The snacks included hummus, veggie wraps, date butter, etc. Everyone who attended actively engaged and ate the prepared snacks. Most importantly, we had a great time working through a project that did not involve our daily job activities, but we all have to consider for our health. We had FUN together.

This was a great activity for my team with the thoughtful preparation by Dr. Josie Bidwell’s team. As the SOM administrative team continues the work of preparing capable, compassionate, and competent physicians from this school, we also are ensuring that we are a resilient group that is able to continue this important work and take care of all of ourselves.