Arwa Nada

I recently had an interesting conversation about “wellness.” What emerged was a shared, painful realization: most institutions have failed dramatically in creating true environments of wellbeing and failed to develop any meaningful metrics to assess whether wellness efforts are effective or even relevant. For many programs, wellness has become a checkbox, a requirement for ACGME reports, another item to list in compliance logs or accreditation surveys. It is often grouped in with other performative initiatives like JEDI that look impressive on paper but collapse at the first gust of reality. Is wellness a poster on the wall? A lunch hour? A required “resilience lecture” tacked on after back-to-back clinical duties? Is it another slogan, PDF, meeting you’re too burned out to attend? Real wellness doesn’t come from templates. It comes from trust, flexibility, & listening. I once had a conversation with my fellows after GME questioned why, as a director, I wasn’t organizing more “outside activities.” One of my fellows—juggling parenthood—spoke truthfully: “If we go to an outside event, it makes me feel worse. I’d have to find and pay for a babysitter just to sit through something that doesn’t restore me. My wellness would be having someone help clean the house once a month, or just an hour to take a walk.” Another said their wellness was simply having protected time without guilt. These are small, deeply human needs, yet, institutions often ignore them choosing instead to fund grand wellness campaigns that fail to ask what people actually need. The true cost of real wellness for trainees & faculty is often lower than what we spend on catered events & flyers—but we overlook it, because listening and adapting is harder than broadcasting. I tried once to put this into writing—to say what I just said now, clearly and directly. Of course, it went nowhere. It didn’t fit the wellness script. We will never achieve wellness until we stop treating it like a program & start treating it like a culture.

I’m honored to be named: The AI Champion Rising Star of the Year as part of the AI Champions Awards during AIMed24, happening November 17-19 in Orlando, Florida! It’s inspiring to be recognized alongside incredible individuals and organizations that are advancing AI in HC

Between the ends and the beginnings, a pause to reflect and thank this great team. It was very hard to say bye to this very dedicated team and see Memphis name disappearing from the map as I got further away. I’m forever grateful for your friendship. You made me a better person.