How FACEMs are leading ACEM Wellness Week in EDs
“Getting nurses and doctors together outside of work is a good thing,” says FACEM Dr Ina Schapiro about her motivation to create social and meaningful activities for her team during ACEM Wellness Week 2024 (19 – 26 May).
An emergency physician based in South Australia, Ina says focusing on wellness is important to her.
““The special thing is that we have gone from feeling quite alone in that space to talking about how to maintain it going forward.””
By understanding how badly a negative culture and lack of cohesiveness can affect staff burnout, she believes striving to have a good work culture is worth the extra effort it takes.
“It makes a huge difference.”
She says one of the biggest challenges around implementing wellness activities and initiatives – during ACEM Wellness Week 2024 and beyond – is to make each member of all staff groups feel included and empowered to participate.
“Just like we could not function without the clerical staff, we also couldn’t function without the cleaning staff. It’s important that every cog in the wheel is recognised.”
Ina says worrying about how best to include everyone involved in the ED team is a good problem to have and shows how the attitude around achieving wellness in the ED is continuing to evolve.
FACEM Dr Ina Schapiro says eating food together – and sharing food – increases collaboration and kindness between team members.
“The special thing is that we have gone from feeling quite alone in that space to talking about how to maintain it going forward.”
Building a sustainable wellness structure
““It’s not a ‘one-size-fits-all-model’ but we’ve decided to do something every single day during this year’s Wellness Week – no matter how small,””
As a full-time clinician, Ina says it was initially hard to drive the direction herself but, having partnered with another doctor “as interested in wellness as me”, they have now managed to bring a range of staff together to form a wellness committee.
“We’ve decided to do something every single day during this year’s Wellness Week – no matter how small,” Ina says. “It all needs to be fairly simple.”
Rolling out a wellness-driven initiative that will continue every day in the ED – long after Wellness Week 2024 has ended – will be a “positive start”.
“Every day we are going to share our shift wins first,” she says about the team’s new approach to their morning and afternoon huddles. “Instead of starting out with the problems at each huddle, we’ll start by trying to look at strengths within the team, rather than issues.”
The goal is that the different strategy will help put people in a mindset that things are possible – instead of enabling what she describes as “the dark curtain going down because we talk about the things that we are not happy with”.
Healthy, fresh food is a popular ingredient in Wellness Week activities.
“It has never been timelier to identify effective evidenced based strategies that promote wellness and can be rigorously evaluated for the ED context.”
Involving food will be another part of this week’s wellness focus and is another initiative she hopes will continue.
“‘Mealtime Mondays’ hasn’t really worked for us because Mondays are always terrible in an emergency department,” Ina says.
She hopes the introduction of ‘Tuck-in Thursday’ will be a better fit.
“Eating food together – and sharing food – increases collaboration and kindness between team members,” says Ina. “Social connection is a determinant for individual wellbeing – I think that is a good starting point.”
Tackling the pressures of emergency medicine life
FACEM Dr Rajesh Sehdev says the Townsville Hospital ED is embracing more wellness-related initiatives.
At the Townsville Hospital emergency department in regional Queensland, FACEM Dr Rajesh Sehdev’s passionate commitment to improving wellness in EDs was cemented by his involvement as a co-investigator in Meeting the wellness needs of emergency department clinicians: A scoping review of interventions.
Alongside Professor Cate Nagle, Dr Vinay Gangathimmaiah, Ms Karen Gerrard and Ms Julie Shepherd, Rajesh explored how the stressful work environment of the ED – often associated with long hours and high-pressure work demands – adversely impacts the physical, mental, and social wellbeing of ED staff, and how promoting staff wellness initiatives can help counteract this tendency to burn out.
“It has never been timelier to identify effective evidenced based strategies that promote wellness and can be rigorously evaluated for the ED context,” the project summary stated.
In the lead-up to ACEM Wellness Week 2024in his own ED, Rajesh says recent surveys of staff – asking them about what they value in relation to wellness at work – revealed food, sport, social events and activities, and relaxation all ranked positively.
Massages have been a favourite activity in wellness week because they offer “ways in which to deeply relax” with a focus on mindfulness.
When it comes to the simple joy of accessing delicious, healthy food and taking a moment to pause and share that food with ED colleagues, Rajesh says they’ve taken a daily fresh fruit focus for wellness week, funded by money raised by one of his ED colleagues. This is in addition to a weekly roll-out of snacks on a trolley.
Activity-based events have been quite successful, says Rajesh, as they provide a point of interest and the chance to talk with other colleagues about things beyond emergency medicine.
““Keeping people healthy is our job – but we must take the time to do it for ourselves too.””
“One of our colleagues took the lead on running a plant and seedling exchange, where people bring in a plant to exchange.”
In past ACEM Wellness Weeks, a photo competition has also proved popular.
“We pick a theme and have prizes donated,” Rajesh says. “The hospital photographer comes down and judges them in a public setting and gives advice on what made the cut and why, and generally how to take better photos.”
The theme this year is ‘ED funnies’, Rajesh says, with a printed display of the photos on the Friday of Wellness Week, that showcase things that have been seen in the ED that make people smile.
“The other thing we’re asking for is people’s pet photos,” he says. “There’s an electronic screen next to our wellness noticeboard and one of my colleagues has created a scrolling display of the photos people recently sent in of their pets.”
The plant exchange at Townsville Hospital has been a popular wellness initiative that invites staff to bring a plant in to swap - or buy one to take home.
Creating cultural workplace change
But beyond food platters, plants, photos and massages, Rajesh says he is interested in creating ongoing cultural change to improve wellness in the ED in a sustainable way.
He formed a wellbeing interest group with “like-minded colleagues” and, despite some reluctance in the beginning – “we based our activities on surveys that showed what people wanted and needed and we knew we were on the right track and pushed through”.
Without the same opportunities to physically network with colleagues at other hospitals like ED staff in city centres, Rajesh says allocating time and resources to ensure Townsville Hospital ED staff tap into wellness events and education and nurture connections with their fellow team members is vital.
“Keeping people healthy is our job – but we must take the time to do it for ourselves too.”
ACEM Wellness Week 2024 runs from 19-26 May.
