Wellness versus flourishing in medical education: a critique toward a new synthesis

In response to the increasingly acknowledged physical, emotional, and psychological challenges of medical education, 'wellness' initiatives have been widely instituted. While the idea of 'wellness' represents a well-intentioned effort to mitigate these stressors, we argue that this notion lacks the moral and philosophical grounding to allow students and trainees to thrive and, on its own, cannot serve as a sufficient goal for medical education reform efforts. We propose the neo-Aristotelian concept of 'flourishing' as a better overarching goal for undergraduate and graduate medical education to pursue in their efforts to better equip their students amidst the challenges of medical school and residency training.