Attendees at the 2019 Annual Meeting have a chance to refresh their passion for their work amid the growing concern about burnout in rheumatology during three Recharge Me: Leading Myself First sessions.
Leadership coach Sara Melita created a series of sessions to help attendees refocus their priorities, think about goals, and identify strategies to promote wellbeing. It’s part of an expanded set of offerings focused on professional development and part of the Annual Meeting Planning Committee’s emphasis on new and innovative learning opportunities. Melita will present sessions on three days in Room B213-214, Building B, Georgia Wolrd Congress Center:
- Making Time for What Matters (5:00–6:00 pm Sunday) will motivate attendees to implement new strategies that create more time for the things that matter most.
- Resilience is the Missing Piece (5:00–6:00 pm Monday) will help people develop and put into practice ways to increase their professional and personal resilience.
- Practice What You Preach (5:00–6:00 pm Tuesday) will cover methods to change habits in ways that prioritize wellness for heath care professionals.
“Each session will be useful to all participants who attend, but people who attend two and even better, all three will get a more complete experience and set of strategies to help them be successful,” Melita said.
Melita, whose work includes the George Washington University’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences, developed the topics for these sessions with Annual Meeting Planning Committee Chair Victoria Shanmugam, MD, FACR, FACP, director, Division of Rheumatology at George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates, Washington, D.C., and chair of the Annual Meeting Planning Committee. Each session will use interactive, facilitated exercises that encourage attendees to collaborate and share their experiences.
While the sessions are designed to promote individual wellbeing, Melita said, those serving in mentoring or leadership roles will also find great value. Those seeking more time to think about goals and what’s important in the future, struggling to deal with competing priorities, distractions, and lack of boundaries, or wanting to reflect on the impact stress is having on themselves and their team will benefit.
“We think that it is so critical to prioritize our own wellbeing which often is the last to get our attention,” Melita said. “We are only better able to serve others when we are at our best which is the idea behind the theme ‘Recharge Me.’”