Developing resilience throughout the continuum of medical education

The thought provoking paper by Dr Outram on ‘you teach us to listen ... but you don’t teach us about suffering—self-care and resilience strategies in medical education,’ highlights the importance for medical educators to consider methods to develop resilience [1]. There has been a recent explosion of interest in teaching and learning resilience in medical education [2–4]. This commentary explores the vital need for medical leaders to develop resilience throughout the continuum of medical education. It is now imperative for medical educators worldwide to collaborate and consider methods to develop resilience for 21st century doctors. We have a duty to support our students and maintain high professional standards of clinical care for our patients. Resilience is an emotional competence and can be considered as behaviour to be acquired during training [5, p 343]. It consists of cognitive processes that encompass at least four dimensions: self-efficacy; planning; self-control; commitment and perseverance [4, 6]. Interestingly, although there are many definitions of medical professionalism [7], none of the definitions include resilience as a theme. Resilience is a new agenda in education and this commentary explores the importance of developing resilience throughout the continuum of medical education. The main aim of the medical school curriculum is to develop competent, professional and compassionate doctors. However, studies suggest that mental health worsens after students begin medical school and remains poor throughout training [8]. Life satisfaction has also shown to be reduced during medical school [9]. Potential causes of student distress include adjustment to the medical school environment, ethical conflicts, exposure to death and human suffering, personal life events and educational debt [8]. Therefore, medical educators need to support students to develop resilience throughout the curriculum in their journey to becoming a doctor. This is