In this episode, I’m joined by Temima Luchansky & Maya Kelkar, the 2 current SRNA reps to the AANA Health & Wellness Committee, to talk about how to find balance in anesthesia training.
Now if that immediately sounds impossible to you, then you’re listening to the right podcast. We’re going to talk about a very concrete way of looking at your life and specific tips for how to manage the incredible challenges we face as anesthesia trainees.
Balance can be an elusive concept to understand and an even more elusive state of being to achieve. Thankfully, the National Wellness Institute provides a simple framework to help us better understand what finding balance looks like in real life. It’s called the Six Dimensions of Wellness. You can think of it like this: there are six domains in each of our lives: social, emotional, occupational, physical, spiritual and intellectual. Temima & Maya share insights for what each of these domains means to them as anesthesia trainees, the specific challenges they face in each domain and specific tips for how to thrive in each of these domains.
Finding balance happens when we work towards putting equal energy & focus into each domain. In the US, especially for Finding balance happens when we work towards putting equal energy & focus into each dimension of our lives. For anesthesia and other healthcare trainees, a disproportionate amount of energy is usually placed on developing the occupational domain as we work through school and towards passing boards. Now, there’s times in our lives when we are intentionally out of balance: when we charge in one domain harder than in the others. And that can be ok for a period of time. It can resulted in a concentrated period of extreme growth and development. But for the long term, understanding what each of these domains can look like in your life and working to put equal energy into each of them can help build real wellness, resiliency and a very tangible & practical sense of balance in our lives.
I’m so grateful that Temima & Maya took time out of their busy lives to join me to discuss the Six Dimensions of Wellness in this podcast. Both of these women are SRNA representatives to the national AANA Health & Wellness Committee. Temima became interested in volunteering on this committee after listening to a prior podcast on Anesthesia Guidebook with other SRNA reps to the Health & Wellness Committee. And Maya came up with the idea for doing a deep dive on this specific topic after listening to a talk I gave at last year’s Idaho State Association of Nurse Anesthetists virtual conference on provider wellness. Both of these individuals have powerful voices and are on a mission to help other SRNAs thrive in their training. I think you’re really going to enjoy hearing from them, which is why I couldn’t find any way to trim this show down from around an hour & twenty minutes… it’s a long podcast but we talk through so much and they give wonderful, practical examples of how to work towards a healthy state of balance & wellness during your anesthesia training. So break up the show over a few commutes or work outs and let us know what you think on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or as comments on the website. Speaking of the internet webs… the show notes of this episode has links to journal articles and a quick PDF run down on the Six Dimensions of Wellness from the National Wellness Institute. We also link to the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology’s website for Student Wellness which hosts a ton of resources for SRNAs who are actively trying to make it all work during training. The AANA has put in a huge amount of effort on fostering proactive wellness initiatives for SRNAs & CRNAs in the last few years and I know these are having far reaching impacts in the anesthesia community.
Which reminds me, Temima & Maya will be hosting a live Zoom session for SRNAs they’re calling SRNA Shared Experiences through the AANA. These are free, live Zoom sessions with a focus on peer-to-peer support in a judgment free zone. Participants talk about the SRNA experience and how to be successful and well in anesthesia training. The next session is in 2 days… Monday, March 21. They run every other month, so if you miss Monday’s SRNA Shared Experience, you can circle back in May to hear from and talk with SRNAs around the nation in these free peer-to-peer support sessions.
So a bit on Temima & Maya and then we’re on to the show…
Temim Luchansky was born & bred in Baltimore, Maryland. She worked in Baltimore at a medical ICU for 2 years and then did 2.5 years of travel nursing in several hospitals throughout New York City in a mix of ICUs including CICU, SICU, CTICU, getting a variety of experience before CRNA school. She’s currently in the inaugural DNP Nurse Anesthesia class at Johns Hopkins University with an anticipated graduate date of 2023.
Maya Kelkar is a 2nd year nurse anesthesia student in the Gonzaga University/Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center Nurse Anesthesia Program. She’s from Atlanta, Georgia and her nursing background is in the pediatric ICU at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. The PICU is where she became passionate about healthcare provider wellness, after seeing high levels of burnout and compassion fatigue among her colleagues, and she was involved in wellness initiatives in her unit and for the hospital. She continues to promote wellness among anesthesia providers as one of the student representatives to the AANA Health & Wellness Committee. She also remembers citing From the Head of the Bed in her grad school interview and is THRILLED to be on the podcast.
Resources
Wondering When to Ask for Help? Check this out from AANA…
Check out #54 – Hardship in Anesthesia School where I talk about my own path in anesthesia training and offer insights for how to keep moving even when the path gets incredibly difficult.
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