Wellbeing Fellows Program

Like many Wellbeing Fellows, Kimberly Gergelis, MD, assistant professor of Radiation Oncology, found herself drawn to wellbeing work through personal experience. As far back as medical school, she witnessed challenging patient interactions and unexpected losses that impacted both her and her peers. As an intern, she found herself stretched thin and without the time to process bad outcomes, leading to her own brush with burnout. As she moved into her residency at the Mayo Clinic, she acted, initiating a grant-funded wellbeing curriculum. She’s been eager to continue working on wellbeing since she arrived at University of Rochester Medicine three and a half years ago.

What does your fellowship project involve?

I’m attempting to enhance the professional fulfillment of the social workers who assist our patients. The idea grew out of a Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement project I led that was focused on making sure all patients who needed to come in for radiation treatments had access to transportation, and to refer them to Social Work to help arrange it if not. That’s an important area, but we heard from the social workers that transportation consults represent the majority of their work, and that they can in fact do a lot more.

And that’s where your project comes in?

Yes. We are assessing various social determinants of health of all new radiation patients and then making referrals to Social Work as needed for concerns like food insecurity, difficulty paying utility bills, and housing insecurity. We’re hoping that bringing those cases to Social Work will boost their professional fulfillment and also improve patient outcomes. Of course, we’ll also track any bandwidth issues that emerge and advocate for additional positions if needed.

How has the project been going?

This had been an idea for over a year, so we were able to move quickly on it. We already have a group of residents, physicians, nurses, and APPs screening patients and making referrals, and we’ll be sending out our first survey to gauge the results soon.

How has being in the fellowship helped you?

The mentorship, not only from leaders but from the other members of the cohort, has been wonderful. It’s great to have people to bounce ideas off of and to talk with about what’s working and what isn’t. Having colleagues who say this work matters and is important helps give me the energy and motivation to move it forward.ut.

When a program works, word spreads fast. Mallory Manning, PAC, heard about the wellbeing fellowship from one of last year’s participants, and, with a longstanding interest in the topic, she was eager to sign on as one of this year’s fellows.

What’s your background in Wellbeing work?

I’ve been involved in the APP Wellness Committee through the Sovie Center at Strong for several years. I work in Hospital Medicine, which can be fast-paced and a high pressure environment at times. Over the years, I've noted that the nature of inpatient medicine paired with off-shift and weekend work are all contributors to burnout, which increases job turn-over as well. I love what I do and the type of medicine that I practice, so I naturally became interested in ways to make it sustainable. When I heard about the opportunity to become a wellbeing fellow, it seemed like the perfect chance to learn more about wellbeing science and hopefully develop a project that could benefit the wellbeing of my colleagues.

The fellowship has just gotten underway, but do you have an idea for your project yet?

I’m still working on the details, but I want to base it around optimizing the Secure Chat experience for APPs. We constantly use it to communicate with nursing staff, attendings and other healthcare professionals. It is a great tool, but the volume of chats can become overwhelming at times. The Unified Clinical Communications team is doing a lot of work right now to optimize Secure Chat across the organization, and I would love to contribute to that effort while advocating for APP wellbeing.

What has your experience with the fellowship been so far?

A. We’ve had a few sessions so far, which has provided a great opportunity to meet the other fellows as well as Dr. Rooney and the Office of Wellbeing team. We’ve also received some expert and very welcomed advice on how to structure our projects. I’ve been a clinician for about 10 years, and I’ve been removed from the research arena for quite some time. The fellowship has been a good reintroduction to that world, and everyone involved has been super warm, encouraging and supportive.

For Hospital Epidemiologist Brenda Tesini, MD, the path to wellbeing work ran through the COVID pandemic and its associated increases in burnout and distress. Now, as a wellbeing fellow, her project is tied to another familiar echo of those years: Hand hygiene.

Aside from the obvious disease-prevention aspects, how is hand hygiene tied to wellbeing?

I’m specifically looking at the Infection Prevention team tasked with improving hand hygiene rates across University of Rochester Medicine and how we can help them feel effective in that role. Unfortunately, we’re seeing stagnant or even declining rates of hand hygiene, which can be quite demoralizing for that team and others working to improve hand hygiene. So we want to develop a toolkit for our infection preventionists to use with the service line or section they are partnered with as a way of freshening our approach to hand hygiene, to improve communication, and to give people tools that work. We hope that will both boost the wellbeing of our team and improve hygiene rates overall.

How is the fellowship helping you with your project?

I came in with a strong sense that there is a clear patient-safety and business case for focusing on wellbeing. Data shows that burnout and staff wellbeing directly impacts hospital-related infection rates and our ability to do infection prevention work. The fellowship is giving me the opportunity to learn the science behind wellbeing, how to assess wellbeing on a broader level, and how to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions.

What has been your experience working with the other fellows?

I love it. When we enter that space for our monthly time together, I feel relaxed. You can see shoulders lowering as tension fades and a sense of community arises. It’s wonderful to feel that sense of support, to share our struggles, and to celebrate our successes. It has also been incredible to get to know all the folks in the Office of Wellbeing on a more personal level, to be able to go to them with any issues, and to join a network of wellbeing-minded colleagues that I know will continue long beyond the fellowship.