Residency Wellness

Residency Softball Game

Taking care of the emotional and mental well-being of our residents is a top priority at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

Caring For You – Program Resources

Nationwide Children's is committed to providing residents with the highest quality training. You will work hard, but we want you to thrive in residency: not just survive!

While you tend to the wellness of our patients, it is our goal to ensure we provide you with the tools and support you need to tend to your own physical and psychological well-being. 

  • Personal Days – To be able to take good care of others, you need to first take good care of yourself. It can be challenging to fit personal appointments into a busy resident schedule. To help make this a little easier, residents are provided with up to three personal days per year that can be taken during elective rotations so they can make sure they take care of their own personal health and wellbeing.
  • Free Lunch - Residents and medical students are provided with a nutritious healthy lunch at no cost every day Monday through Friday. We also provide a meal money allowance for use in our cafeterias, coffee shops, ice cream bar and even Panera Bread.
  • Team Building – From orientation to graduation, our residents participate in workshops, outdoor activities, happy hours, journal club dinners and much more. They spend a lot of time together: at work and play! They give back to our community participating in nationally acclaimed events, including the Columbus Marathon and Pelotonia.
  • Sports Teams – The Pediatric Residency Program sponsors multiple resident sports teams, including volleyball, kickball, softball and indoor soccer.
  • Fitness Center - Residents have access to the Nationwide Children’s Fitness Center (open 24 hours a day,) as well as the Resident Wellness Room equipped with exercise bikes, yoga mats and free weights, providing residents with a space to work out, relax, meditate or do a light workout in their own dedicated space.
  • Free Counseling – Through Matrix Employee Assistance Program our residents can access free, confidential counseling resources.
  • Medical Appointments – We ensure all of our residents can get time away from work to care for themselves.

Wellness Committee

The Pediatric Residency Wellness Committee is a resident-led group of residents and chief residents. They work with program leadership to implement initiatives that support residents’ health and happiness, reducing burnout and stress during training.

  • Butterfly Buddies – In the weeks after Match Day our new interns are paired with a senior buddy based on their hobbies and interests through our Butterfly Buddy program. Buddies are a great source of information and advice during the transition to residency and lasting friendships are made through training. 
  • Wellness Noon Series – The committee manages this series, which offers residents an opportunity to socialize and discuss stress management topics each month. Topics covered include financial health, managing fatigue, massage therapy, time with our beloved therapy dogs and much more.
  • The Second Victim Peer Support Program – Committee members are trained peer supporters for this hospital-wide program. This enables them to support their peers in adverse situations or crises. Learn more about the program.

Caring For You – Hospital Resources

YOU Matter Program

In addition to our program-level initiatives, our residents are supported by the hospital’s YOU Matter Program.

Nationwide Children’s Hospital‘s YOU Matter program consists of five components to support the emotional needs of all staff. These components address stress, burnout, and second hand trauma.

Trained peer supporters are available at all times to help colleagues cope with difficult patient care or personal situations. At times when a higher level of support is needed our Critical Response Team can be utilized.

Employee Wellness

All staff can take advantage of a huge variety of health, fitness and wellness activities including nutrition counseling, many varieties of exercise classes, self-defense and employee sports teams.

Tackling Burnout Head On

We are one of the founding members of ‘The Pediatric Resident Burnout – Resilience Study Consortium.’

Founded in 2015 with six participating programs, the consortium now has more than 50 participating pediatric and medicine – pediatric programs throughout the U.S.

The PRB – RCS is committed to identifying the causes of burnout and providing a platform for design and testing of interventions that address burnout prevention/mitigation and resilience promotion in pediatric residents.

John D Mahan, MD, former Nationwide Children's Pediatric Residency Program Director, is co-director of the PRB-RSC and Suzanne Reed, MD, Associate PD is our Nationwide Children's lead investigator.