Creating leaders through scholarship: The development of a physician wellness fellowship in emergency medicine

There is a clear need for physician leaders with expertise in wellness given the high incidence of physician burnout, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. A fellowship in physician wellness provides structured opportunity for the development of expertise in the science and administration of physician wellness through a tailored curriculum and academic scholarship.

Currently, limited opportunities exist to pursue formal wellness training in graduate medical education. This lack of specific training may make the path to expertise and leadership in physician wellness difficult.

Our objective was to design and implement a physician wellness fellowship in a department of emergency medicine. Completion of this fellowship, with ongoing professional development, will give physicians the skills to fill various leadership roles within the house of medicine, such as chief wellness officer, department, organization, national wellness leader, or wellness consultant.

The fellowship curriculum was developed according to Kern's six-step approach with expert consultation. The Stanford WellMD Model of Professional Fulfillment was used as a framework to define the core content. The curriculum has five principal components developed utilizing competency-based education in medicine: dissemination of knowledge (teaching), clinical, educational foundation, implementation (administrative), and critical investigation (research).

The physician wellness fellowship was implemented for the academic year 2019-2020. The fellow completed all the required fellowship activities. In addition, the fellow completed the American College of Emergency Physician's teaching fellowship program. The fellowship is budget neutral because the fellow's half-time clinical revenue is sufficient to cover the fellow's salary and education and support for fellowship direction.

Outcomes of this novel program will be measured over time. Although the format of this fellowship is designed for emergency medicine, the skills and content are relevant to and may be adopted in other medical specialties at other institutions.