(Tuesday, 4/10/2018) 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Marquis Ballroom 5-8
Medical Physicists have been shown to have high level of stress in the workplace. Social support from peers has been shown to be desired by physicians, and has also been recently shown to be extremely cost effective. Despite this, few programs offer social support to their staff members from their peers. In a recent AAPM associated survey of medical physicists, social support had been sought by medical physicists for personal physical illness (78.63%), involvement in a medical error (73.94%) or adverse patient outcome (75.17%). They also sought social support in the setting of personal fatigue (33.2%) or burnout (44.3%). This program would discuss the data behind peer support, the problem of the second victim, and would share strategies for offering peer support. Practical advice on offering peer support and challenges therein would be given.
Learning Objectives:
1. Describe second victim syndrome and the cost of this problem (personal, health system)
2. Discuss the data on medical physicists and desire for peer support
3. Describe effective peer support techniques after a medical error
Mentor relationships are important to a medical physicist’s career. Young physicists will start out as mentees, but as their careers develop, they will find themselves becoming mentors as well. The transition from mentee to mentor may not always be easy and smooth, but it has definitely been overlooked. Mentoring is part of the leadership skill set that one can’t naturally own, but those skills can be nurtured and trained. The goal of this professional symposium is to share experience and provide advices from mid-career physicists and senior mentors. The session aims to empower junior or mid-level physicists with fundamental elements of how to be effective and successful in their mentoring roles.
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