Training in Wellness and Resiliency at the University of Rochester Medical Center and College of Arts, Sciences & Engineering

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Project Summary/Abstract Resilience, well-being, mindfulness, equity and inclusion, compassion, empathy, self- and group-refection, self- efficacy, and knowing when to ask for scientific and psychological help from scientific colleagues and health- care givers are features that we all recognize to be important for a healthy, balanced, thoughtful, and productive professional career and personal life. We have all lived through large stressors that continue to present us with challenges, including the struggle for racial justice, gender-related discrimination, the COVID pandemic, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Together with the stressors of a highly competitive academic science profession, and the challenges of mentoring young scientists toward earning a PhD degree, it is important to be aware and practice effective means of coping with stress, and to connect with others in healthy ways. In today’s world, the risks of in-person social isolation are high, and while the internet can be a boon to learning, it can also be a source of mis-information and harm. This Supplement application proposes to establish and sustain the use of healthy connections through two exceptionally well-trained experts in wellness and resilience – Drs. Kermin Martínez-Hernández and Jeffrey Ring. It is the hope of Lynne Maquat and Jeffrey Hayes, PI and co-PI of our NIH T32 GM135134, funded for years 2020-2025, that T32 mentors, past and current T32 trainees and, when space allows, any University of Rochester Medical Center and College of Arts, Sciences & Engineering faculty or trainee will have the opportunity to engage with Drs. Martínez-Hernández and Ring on November 17th, 2022, and February 15th–16th, 2023, respectively. Each guest speaker will instruct and lead discussions on topics related to best practices in wellness and resiliency through a number of focused and interactive events. Given the obvious need among our faculty and students, and the track-record of the two facilitators, we are certain that these training opportunities will help refresh and center participants, as well as giving them valuable tools to employ to maintain wellness and resiliency into the future. We also propose to measure the success of our training by surveying participants immediately after the trainings, in consultation with the two training experts, and then again one year later through our T32 Steering Committee, for both retention and perceived outcomes.