Student Wellness | Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
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Student Wellness Committee

The Student Wellness Committee initially began a few years ago as a small group of students who were interested in helping their classmates and future colleagues navigate the trials and tribulations of the medical training process. However, with ourselves and our classmates so often occupied with schoolwork, we found it difficult to implement ideas that would improve the long-term wellbeing of our fellow students. After many meetings, discussions, and brainstorming sessions, we felt that the ideal course of action to fulfill these goals would be to construct a program dedicated to the following:

-Include training in mental and emotional management that would be grounded in an effective, practice-based framework

-Cover the content in a series of small-group workshops

-Have voluntary student participation, as we felt that mandatory sessions run the risk of being psychologically less effective

-The initiative would be almost entirely student driven, with some critical support from faculty and administration

-We will design some mechanism for the program to evolve, propagate, and be passed down to future medical students at TTUHSC School of Medicine (SOM)

The Resiliency Peer program is an initiative from the Student Wellness Committee that is under the guidance of Dr. Allison Perrin, Director of Student Affairs for the School of Medicine, and Dr. Elisabeth Conser, Assistant Dean for Student Wellness and Advancement for the School of Medicine. The Resiliency Peer Program is in response to the Student Wellness Committee’s identification of a significant need for educating our peers about topics in mental health and burnout prevention. The program is aimed at equipping medical students with tools to better manage stress and reduce burnout by forming a support system of medical students and faculty who are informed about techniques to support student wellness. In addition, the program focuses on the cultivation of evidence-based tools to allow medical students to manage stress so that rather than solely surviving, students can thrive in the challenges offered in medical school and beyond. 


Our vision is for the Resiliency Peer program to develop as a unique, student-led TTUHSC initiative that focuses on improving student wellbeing in the form of an elective starting Spring 2021 focused on training and supporting pre-clinical MS1 and MS2 students at TTUHSC SOM. The Resiliency Peers Elective will utilize the Components for Enhancing Clinician Engagement and Reduction of Trauma, or “CE-CERT,” a model for safeguarding against provider burnout that is locally taught by Dr. Michael Gomez, Licensed Pediatric Psychologist and former Assistant Professor in the Pediatrics Department at TTUHSC. With the goal of helping people to recognize and manage difficult emotional states, the CE-CERT model features five core domains with respective skill-sets that are tied together by the common thread of conscious oversight and mindfulness. These major domains are: experiential engagement, parasympathetic recovery, conscious narratives, decreasing ruminations, and reducing emotional labor.

MS3 students were introduced to a mindfulness and personal values development led by Dr. Giles to further contribute to the wellbeing of students on clinical rotations. We are also in the process of planning and designing another program focused on developing core values to aid students as they begin to decide specialty choice for residency applications.

MS4 students are lead through a mandatory TRIAL course which has a newly developed wellness component that addresses coping skills, resiliency, and burnout prevention on the residency trail, during residency, and in future career paths.

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From the Office of Wellness at Texas Tech University School of Medicine, we want to extend a warm welcome to our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends! As Assistant Dean of Student Wellness and Advancement, I, together with Dr. Allison Perrin, Director of Student Affairs and Wellness, want to join alongside our students and our institution in fostering a positive, diverse, and safe environment for everyone. Our mission is to develop a shared organizational culture that supports wellness through authentic student connections, meaningful institutional engagement and partnership, and promotion of health, self-care, and well-being. As we navigate a global pandemic, now more than ever, our focus is on examining and eliminating sources of burnout, building resilience, and cultivating self-compassion. We are grateful through our partnership with the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Counseling Center to offer valuable resources for prevention, treatment, and holistic support of mental health needs. We are also fortunate to have a shared commitment with the members of our student wellness committee in building a network of wellness champions among the student body and institution. In meeting the social, emotional, physical, and mental health needs of our student body, our hope is not only for our students to succeed but also flourish and attain work-life fulfillment during their medical school journey and beyond.

- Dr. Elisabeth Conser, Assistant Dean of Student Wellness and Advancement 

 

 

Need help?

Reach out to these crisis teams: 

StarCare Crisis 

806-740-1414

Texas Tech Crisis Helpline

806-742-5555

Suicide Hotline

988 (call or text)

Covid Mental Health Support 

806-740-1450

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