The Office of Faculty Wellness invites the entire UTSouthwestern community to participate virtually in the second annual Wellness Symposium through interactive workshops, engaging lectures, and mindfulness experiences.
Supporting each other, enhancing communication and teamwork, and creating an inclusive and diverse community are important to wellness. Explore ways to enhance your personal and professional well-being through virtual workshops highlighting:
- The medical humanities
- Coaching and communication skill development
- Mindfulness
- Unconscious bias and cultural competency
UTSouthwestern is dedicated to supporting the people who support our mission of teaching, research, and clinical excellence. Let’s take some time to re-engage with each other and our mission.
Event Date & Continuing Education Details
April 16Noon – 4 p.m. CT
April 17 9 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. CT
Continuing Medical Education DetailsContinuing Nurse Education Details
Art/Music/Video Submission
Art can be a great method for rejuvenating and reconnecting with each other and with our experiences in medicine. Thank you for sharing your poems, essays, visual art, dance, and music with our UTSouthwestern community during our second Annual Wellness Symposium!
Visual Art Highlights
Taking time to stop and capture snapshots of beauty helps bring me joy - and in sharing these photos, I hope to help spread this joy to others.
Jacqueline Bolt
Painting trees, with their intricate and extensive branches and roots, is both therapeutic and representative of the many different paths we take in life and the roles we fill on a daily basis.
Sneha Bhat
Digital art made on procreate inspired by my time spent in India.
Esha Hansorti
Collage: The Doorways to Possibilities
Connie Cornwell
Friday, April 16, 2021
Noon– 1 p.m.
Telling Stories to Heal Ourselves, Each Other, and the World
In times of crisis, we tell stories: of suffering and slights, of disconnection and disillusionment, of people who made a difference and of people who struggled to show up, connect, carry on. Health care is a world of stories; they are how we learn, communicate, and advocate. This session will discuss how any of us can use our own stories and those of our teams, patients, and colleagues to find healing, purpose, and connection.
Speaker: Louise Aronson
Louise Aronson, M.D., M.F.A., is a leading geriatrician, writer, educator, and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. The author of the New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize finalist Elderhood, she is a regular contributor to the New York Times and the New England Journal of Medicine among other publications. Recognition of Louise’s work includes a MacDowell fellowship, four Pushcart nominations, the American Geriatrics Society Clinician-Teacher of the Year award, and a Gold Professorship for Humanism in Medicine.
Track
Medical Humanities, Mindfulness/Group Support, Coaching/Communications, Diversity & Inclusion
This session has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
1 – 2 p.m.
- Taking a Breath: Taking a Moment to Process the Past Year
This session has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
The stress of the pandemic has been great for our entire UTSouthwestern community. During this session, the Navigating Our Multifaceted Acute Distress (NOMAD) team will lead this discussion as we process and debrief the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on our academic and clinical community.
Speakers
Michael Rubin, M.D.
Associate Professor
Chair, UTSW Clinical Ethics CommitteeShelley Brown-Cleere, M.S.N.
Director of Neuroscience
Jaime Harry, LCSW
Faculty Wellness Program Liaison
Track
Mindfulness/Group Support
- Poetry in Medicine: Experiencing Poetry Through Sight and Sound
Poetry is a literary art form across many cultures and subject matters; critiquing and interpreting poetry can provide opportunities for self-reflection, robust discussion about common experience, and contextualizing our daily experiences.
Participants will be introduced to:
- Some key concepts and techniques around reading poetry
- A few specific poems with space for group discussion about meaning
Speaker
Track
Medical Humanities
- The Truth About Feeling Like a Fake: Imposter Syndrome
This session has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
Imposter syndrome surfaces at times for many of us and can inhibit our ability to bring our greatest efficacy to our work. This highly interactive session will explore experiences of imposter syndrome, effective tactics to reduce the phenomenon, and various perspectives on finding confidence.
Learning objectives are:
- Define imposter syndrome (IS) and provide examples of IS in their own and others’ work
- Explore and practice skills which have been demonstrated to reduce IS
- Review the diverse methods of finding confidence and explore relative areas of comfort/discomfort in demonstrating confidence
Speaker
Assistant Director of Advanced Practice Providers, Ambulatory Services
Christina Ahn, Ph.D., CPCC, ACC
Director of the Office of Faculty Diversity & Development and Office of Women’s Careers, Faculty Affairs
Track
Coaching/Communications
2 – 3:30 p.m.
- Using the Art of Improvisation to Drive Meaningful Communication and Collaboration in Health Care and Academic Medicine
This session has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
Today’s health care leader can benefit embracing the human to human side of leading a team through being more authentic, agile, empowering, and learning how to be a better listener, delegator, and communicator. The tenets of improv include:
- Ensemble, reconciling the needs of individuals with those of the broader team;
- Co-creation, which highlights the importance of dialogue in creating new products, processes, and relationships;
- Authenticity, or being unafraid to speak truth to power, challenge convention, and break rules;
- Failure, which teaches us that not only is it OK to fail, but we should always include it as part of our process;
- Inclusion, which enables leaders to encourage all points of view and foster innovation among their teams; and
- Listening, in which you learn to stay in the moment, and know the difference between listening to understand and listening merely to respond.
Through improv participants will enhance the following professional skills:
- Empathy
- Doing more Together
- Giving and Receiving Feedback
- Navigating Change
- Vulnerability
- Resilience
- How to have a conversation about a difficult topic (instead of a difficult conversation)
- Taking and supporting risk amongst your team
- Shifting rules and expectations in the face of change
- Being Present in Moment, Creating Clarity and Focus
- Problem Solving, Strategic Focus
Using these key tenets as a guide, we will facilitate improv-based exercises and debriefs pertinent to the healthcare and academic medicine environments. Participants will engage in a series of paired and full-group exercises that encourage them to interact and learn from the experience.
Speaker
Kristy West
Track
Medical Humanities
- Our Strength is Our Community: Cultural Competency
This session has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
In this workshop, we walk through the practical strategies health care workers can apply to provide culturally competent care to the increasingly diverse communities we serve.
The core objectives we discuss include:
- How culture impacts every health care encounter
- Opportunities to address microinequities in health care
- Self-awareness of behaviors and bias
- Active listening and body language observance
- Clear communication across cultural differences
Speakers
Keneshia Colwell
Diversity & Inclusion Specialist, Office of Institutional & Access
Jaime Harry, LCSW
Faculty Wellness Program Liaison
Laila Cooper, LCSW, M.S.S.W.
Manager, Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
Track
Diversity and Inclusion
2 – 3 p.m.
- Mindfulness
This session has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
Even pre-pandemic, health care providers experienced high levels of burnout and distress. Since the onset of the pandemic, rates of anxiety and depression in health care workers have increased significantly. Studies have shown that active participation in mindfulness practice helps prevent burnout and restore wellness to individuals experiencing these conditions. Health care providers, while aware of the topic and its potential benefits, remain unfamiliar with actual direct practice of the benefits that mindfulness can provide. This activity will help close gaps in knowledge about mindfulness and improve ability to implement during their professional and personal life.
Participants will:
- Learn and recognize fundamental mindfulness practices
- Appraise and choose practices that are suited to them personally
- Discover the process of actively embodying and internalizing on an experiential basis the basic teachings and practices of mindfulness
- Practice as a group the skills of fundamental mindfulness exercises including awareness of breathing, body scan, walking practice, and mindful movement
Speakers
Preston Wiles, M.D.
Professor
Assistant Dean, Student & Resident Mental Health & WellnessTrack
Mindfulness/Group Support
- Music and Healing: How Spirituality, the Arts, and Music Can Help Us Cope with Illness
Spirituality and the arts can be intertwined to help cope with illness. This session will delve into a culturally unique example of this. The use of ethnically distinct music and poetry as it relates to a spiritual heritage and coping with illness will be discussed. The audience will come away with an awareness that is relatable to all patients.
Speaker
Turya Nair, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Associate Residency Program Director, Department of Family & Community MedicineTrack
Medical Humanities
2:30 - 4 p.m.
- Powerful Conversations
This session has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
What would it be like to be fully present and actively listen to the person you are having a conversation with? What could be available to you and others as you deeply listen and ask powerful questions? This highly interactive session will provide you with the foundational tools to have powerful conversations that you can implement immediately.
Learning objectives are:
- Learn to actively listen to yourself and others
- Explore what is available to you when you suspend judgment and stay curious
- Practice active listening skills and asking powerful questions
Speaker
Christina Ahn, Ph.D., CPCC, ACC
Director of the Office of Faculty Diversity & Development and Office of Women’s Careers, Faculty Affairs
Track
Coaching/Communications
3 – 4 p.m.
- Reflective Writing: Finding Joy and Meaning Through Writing
Reflective writing has been shown to be beneficial for identity formation, self-reflection, and wellness.
Participants will be:
- Introduced to multiple non-clinical writing formats that allow for reflection and introspection, including the 55 Word Essay, and Haiku formats
- Given opportunities to try generating their own short essays and/or poems
- Free to share their creations with the larger group
- Encouraged to find time and space to incorporate a daily reflective writing practice into their own day if interested
Speaker
Philip Day, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Track
Coaching/Communications
- Managing Up: How to Approach Challenging Conversations with Those in Power
This session has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
Some conversations are naturally more difficult than others because your perspective or agenda doesn’t immediately line up with that of the other person. The challenge feels much bigger when the other person is your boss, or anyone else in a more senior position in the institutional hierarchy.
Speakers
Mike Caracalas, CPCC, PCC
Professional Executive Coach, Office of Faculty Wellness
Suzanne Farmer, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Assistant Vice President of Organizational Development and TrainingTrack
Coaching/Communications
Saturday, April 17, 2021
9 – 10:30 a.m.
- Mindfulness (Part 1)
This session has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
Even pre-pandemic, health care providers experienced high levels of burnout and distress. Since the onset of the pandemic, rates of anxiety and depression in health care workers have increased significantly. Studies have shown that active participation in mindfulness practice helps prevent burnout and restore wellness to individuals experiencing these conditions. Health care providers, while aware of the topic and its potential benefits, remain unfamiliar with actual direct practice of the benefits that mindfulness can provide. This activity will help close gaps in knowledge about mindfulness and improve ability to implement during their professional and personal life.
Participants will:
- Learn and recognize fundamental mindfulness practices
- Appraise and choose practices that are suited to them personally
- Discover the process of actively embodying and internalizing on an experiential basis the basic teachings and practices of mindfulness
- Practice as a group the skills of fundamental mindfulness exercises including awareness of breathing, body scan, walking practice, and mindful movement
Speakers
Preston Wiles, M.D.
Professor
Assistant Dean, Student & Resident Mental Health & WellnessTrack
Mindfulness/Group Support
- Implicit Bias in Medicine: A Primer and Case Studies in Bias Mitigation
This session has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
Implicit biases can create gaps between good intentions and good outcomes in the health care field. Finding ways to identify our biases and mitigate them can enhance our work environment and improve the care of patients and improve outcomes for all patients.
In this interactive workshop, participants will:
- Define implicit bias (IB)
- Discuss two examples IB impacting patient care
- Describe two strategies to mitigate IB in one-on-one interactions
Speaker
Quinn Capers IV, M.D.
Professor
Rody P. Cox, M.D. Professorship in Internal Medicine
Associate Dean of Faculty DiversityTrack
Diversity & Inclusion
- Interpersonal Communication 101
This session has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
Interprofessional communication skills are essential within our diverse teams for successful collaboration in our work of educating, discovering, and healing. In this interactive workshop, we will explore the greatest challenges of diverse teams, explore key skills for effective communication (hint: it starts with asking and listening!), and practice these skills in breakout rooms.
Learning objectives are:
- Consider the greatest barriers to effective interprofessional team communication
- Describe and observe three key effective strategies for skillful communication
- Practice interpersonal communication skills using participants’ own professional cases
Speakers
Assistant Director of Advanced Practice Providers, Ambulatory Services
Tyonn Barbera, M.S., MBN, APRN, NP-C
Advanced Practice Nurse Practitioner
Track
Coaching/Communications
10 – 11 a.m.
- Art and a Healing Environment: A Virtual Tour and Discussion about the Art of Clements University Hospital
Creating a healing environment is paramount to wellness for our patients and our healthcare providers. UTSouthwestern art curator, Courtney Crothers, will provide a virtual tour of Clements University Hospital and the intentionality and purpose of art selections within the hospital to help our patients and our staff heal and be well.
Speaker
Courtney Crothers
Art Curator, UTSouthwestern
Track
Medical Humanities
11 a.m. – Noon
- Mindfulness (Part 2)
This session has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
This is the second part of the Mindfulness talk. To get the most out of the presentation, participants should take the first part of the talk before taking this part.
Even pre-pandemic, health care providers experienced high levels of burnout and distress. Since the onset of the pandemic, rates of anxiety and depression in health care workers have increased significantly. Studies have shown that active participation in mindfulness practice helps prevent burnout and restore wellness to individuals experiencing these conditions. Health care providers, while aware of the topic and its potential benefits, remain unfamiliar with actual direct practice of the benefits that mindfulness can provide. This activity will help close gaps in knowledge about mindfulness and improve ability to implement during their professional and personal life.
Participants will:
- Learn and recognize fundamental mindfulness practices
- Appraise and choose practices that are suited to them personally
- Discover the process of actively embodying and internalizing on an experiential basis the basic teachings and practices of mindfulness
- Practice as a group the skills of fundamental mindfulness exercises including awareness of breathing, body scan, walking practice, and mindful movement
Speakers
Preston Wiles, M.D.
Professor
Assistant Dean, Student & Resident Mental Health & WellnessTrack
Mindfulness/Group Support
- Meeting the Humans in Our Patients: Patient Art and Processing Illness
Many patients are artists or become artists through their illness. Art is both a human expression and a therapeutic venue for many dealing with poor health. When caregivers, who must focus on the biophysical profile of patients, are made aware of the patient’s use of the arts, the patient and the interaction become more humanized. It is the goal of this presentation to have an experience where caregivers are exposed to different artists and their use of the arts to deal with illness, with the hope that this will reframe our work as that between two humans.
Speaker
Sudha Mootha, M.D.
Assistant Professor, Pediatrics
Track
Medical Humanities
- Communicating Directly: How to Get Your Point Across without Being a Jerk
This session has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
We often hesitate to communicate directly for a variety of reasons. Maybe we don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, or maybe we’ve heard feedback before that we’re “too direct.” One response is to avoid being direct, but that has many potential drawbacks. The better response is learning to communicate directly in a way that works.
Learning objectives are:
- Explore why communicating directly can be so challenging for some, or too easy for others
- Learn a model of communication which is both direct and caring for the relationship
- Practice giving feedback in constructive ways.
Speakers
Mike Caracalas, CPCC, PCC
Professional Executive Coach, Office of Faculty Wellness
Tyonn Barbera, M.S., MBN, APRN, NP-C
Advanced Practice Nurse Practitioner
Track
Coaching/Communications
11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
- Using the Art of Improvisation to Drive Meaningful Communication and Collaboration in Health Care and Academic Medicine
This session has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
Today’s health care leader can benefit embracing the human to human side of leading a team through being more authentic, agile, empowering, and learning how to be a better listener, delegator, and communicator. The tenets of improv include:
- Ensemble, reconciling the needs of individuals with those of the broader team;
- Co-creation, which highlights the importance of dialogue in creating new products, processes, and relationships;
- Authenticity, or being unafraid to speak truth to power, challenge convention, and break rules;
- Failure, which teaches us that not only is it OK to fail, but we should always include it as part of our process;
- Inclusion, which enables leaders to encourage all points of view and foster innovation among their teams; and
- Listening, in which you learn to stay in the moment, and know the difference between listening to understand and listening merely to respond.
Through improv participants will enhance the following professional skills:
- Empathy
- Doing more Together
- Giving and Receiving Feedback
- Navigating Change
- Vulnerability
- Resilience
- How to have a conversation about a difficult topic (instead of a difficult conversation)
- Taking and supporting risk amongst your team
- Shifting rules and expectations in the face of change
- Being Present in Moment, Creating Clarity and Focus
- Problem Solving, Strategic Focus
Using these key tenets as a guide, we will facilitate improv-based exercises and debriefs pertinent to the healthcare and academic medicine environments. Participants will engage in a series of paired and full-group exercises that encourage them to interact and learn from the experience.
Speaker
Kristy West
Track
Medical Humanities
