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Integrating wellness and academic support initiatives into graduate medical sciences curricula
Author(s) -
Beckler Michelle Demory,
Giczkowski Arlene M,
Dribin Lori B
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2019.33.1_supplement.607.2
Subject(s) - medical education , curriculum , mental health , psychology , medicine , pedagogy , psychotherapist
Studies have shown that health and wellness are linked to student success as physical, mental, and emotional health issues interfere with learning and can result in poor academic performance. Our Masters of Biomedical Sciences program allows students to demonstrate that they can be successful in either medical or dental programs. Students that are successful in our graduate program are competitive candidates for acceptance into medical or dental school. Our students are enrolled in the same basic science courses as medical or dental school students. Accordingly, they not only face the same pressure as these first year professional school students, but also experience additional stresses due to the higher demands and rigors of our program. The purpose of this study was to determine whether integrating wellness and direct academic support initiatives within a required course led to enhanced student satisfaction and knowledge of support resources. Research indicates that it is more beneficial to provide wellness programs proactively for all students as opposed to reactively reaching out to those students who are experiencing difficulties. Therefore, we incorporated lectures and activities that exposed students to wellness programs and initiatives as well as direct academic support sessions. We evaluated student satisfaction with each of these new initiatives using surveys. The results show a significantly higher number of current students were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the wellness and academic support provided by both the College and the required course compared to students from previous years. Our study also shows students were interested in incorporating components of wellness initiatives into their lifestyle as well as seeking out one‐on‐one academic support. Many medical and dental schools as well as undergraduate institutions have incorporated wellness programs. Our data suggests that incorporating wellness and academic support into a required course has enhanced success and satisfaction in our unique cohort of students. This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .