The Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy has implemented a new wellbeing program to combat common student stressors and empower pharmacy students to take control over their own health.
Inspired by the house system of the “Harry Potter” book franchise and the Learning Community system that originally debuted at Vanderbilt University, the Gatton Wellbeing program sorts incoming students into larger “houses” within the department.
The program is built to tackle the challenges that students in caretaker roles tend to face, including physical and mental health maintenance. Many students begin to struggle with compassion fatigue – where a caregiver’s ability to empathize and relate to patients begins to break down after prolonged stress.
“To some degree, the students were starting to feel just a disconnect from their patients, whereas when they first started off in school they had a great sense of compassion and wanting to help and empathy for their patients, but the further along they got in the curriculum the more tired they got,” said Taylor Coston, president of the Student Wellbeing Committee for the Gatton College of Pharmacy. “You do lose that capacity, what I like to call ‘emotional real estate’, to care for patients like you want to.”
After last semester’s transition to remote learning due to COVID-19, student polls showed a significant drop across multiple domains of wellbeing across the College of Pharmacy. One goal of the program is to mitigate the impacts of this transition, as well as building healthy mental mechanisms within the college.
“One of the main reasons that I joined, it wasn’t necessarily burnout or compassion fatigue, but one reason I’m really passionate about it is because I’ve had my own struggles of being able to take care of myself how I need to, and you can’t pour from an empty cup,” said Angie Chrisman, university chair of the Student Wellness Committee and third year pharmacy student. “There are several people that I do know that are experiencing burnout and compassion fatigue. For me personally, it was more a matter of ‘I need a way to help take care of myself and help others take care of themselves.’”
As each new student joins the pharmacy, he or she is surveyed and sorted into one of the four houses themed around significant figures in the college’s history or the history of pharmacy in general.
Students have the option of becoming a member of the Bishop Bears, Calhoun Cougars, Stanton Eagles or Wilson Wolves. Each house has its own faculty mentors who organize wellbeing and team building opportunities to build communities within the college and build relationships with their students. Each house has a chance of winning the House Cup throughout the semester as they collect points through wellbeing activities and the competition culminates in a multi-day tournament complete with mental and physical challenges.
As a part of their orientation, the class of 2024 became the first to be sorted into the program.
“It was a super fun experience,” said Colston. “It would have been so much cooler if it was face-to-face, but virtual was awesome too. The incoming class has really embraced this program more than my wildest dreams, they’re embracing it beautifully. It’s just a moment where we very boldly say ‘You are one of us, welcome home.’”
For more information about the Gatton Wellbeing Program, visit https://www.etsu.edu/etsu-news/2020/08-august/gatton-wellbeing.php
