What is the Wellness & Student Life Action Committee?
The Wellness & Student Life (WSL) Action Committee is dedicated to both trainee wellness and patient wellness through the development of patient-centered care and of supportive educational environments. These goals require an emphasis on patient-centered care over physician-centered care, especially as that care pertains to integrative/complementary/alternative medicine. The WSL committee also advocates for and supports the need for trainees to have regular access to medical humanities to foster healing through understanding, community, creativity, personal reflection, and a connection with humanity.
Our Goals & Getting Engaged
Student Wellness: Define and implement research to determine and address unmet medical and premedical student needs in their educational experiences as it relates to physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being.
View Our Wellness Resources: Yoga, Breathing, & Mindfulness Exercises
Humanism in Medicine: Extend opportunities to physicians-in-training in the development of lifestyles that counter the deleterious effects of stress through creative expression, self-care, balance and holistic goals for personal growth and professional development.
Student Support: Provide student wellness resources that will allow physicians-in-training access to information for their personal growth and well-being. Offering creative outlets where physicians-in-training can express and reflect on their experiences in academic environments, working on the wards and/or engaging in community service.
Student Debt: Advocate for the affordability of medical education and reducing student debt through legislative action and education, as evidenced by legislative changes, favorable debt repayment plans for residents, and increased transparency in medical education tuition costs.
Get Involved!
Wellness & Student Life in the On Call Blog
Physician well-being is an important, yet underappreciated topic. During a recent AMSA Activism Update, medical student Thomas Pak moderated a discussion between Dr. Mona Masood, […]
Written by the AMSA Environmental Health Action Committee This post is a series of mental health pieces from the AMSA WSL Committee Extreme weather events, such […]
Meet Thomas My name is Thomas Pak, an MD/PhD student and the chair of the Wellness and Student Life Action Committee. As students, it can be […]
Author: Kelsey Brown, Medical Student at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University This post is one of a series of mental health pieces from […]
Authors: AJ Chowdhury, Max Wei, Alex Belzer AJ Chowdhury is a Bangladeshi-American medical student at Iowa. Max Wei is a Chinese-American medical student at Iowa. Alex […]
Author: Conor Burke-Smith, second-year medical student, Iowa This post is a series of mental health pieces from the AMSA WSL Committee Much has been written […]
Authors: AMSA Wellness and Student Life Action Committee, 2020-2021 Mental Health is Vital Mental health is a vital component of our overall health. The WHO defines […]
The Invitational Conference on USMLE Scoring (InCUS) recently allowed public statements from medical students in regards to the potential USMLE Step 1 score change. The USMLE […]
By: Ellen Pappas “I want to be a doctor because I want to help people.” A sentence that comes out of countless medical students’ mouths looking […]
This post was created in partnership with BetterHelp. As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp if you purchase products or services through the […]
This post was created in partnership with BetterHelp. As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp if you purchase products or services through the […]
This post was created in partnership with BetterHelp. As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp if you purchase products or services through the […]
This post was created in partnership with BetterHelp. As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp if you purchase products or services through the […]
This post was created in partnership with BetterHelp. As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp if you purchase products or services through the […]
By: Sabrina Wang As a pre-med student, life gets pretty hectic. Between juggling classes, studying for exams, student orgs, volunteering, working, research, and finding time with […]
By: Timothy Dixon So you’re starting your journey to medical school. Congrats! I am certain there’s quite the cocktail of emotions stirring inside of you comprised […]
This post was created in partnership with BetterHelp. As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp if you purchase products or services through the […]
By: Coco Victoria Gomez Tirambulo Happy Wellness Wednesday, everyone! I recently watched a documentary called The Gut: Our Second Brain on Amazon Prime Video. It was released […]
Dearest Reader, Roses are Red Violets are Blue Med school is tough But so are you! -Cupid, MS1 Considering that Valentine’s Day is around […]
Of all the skills and knowledge people say you need to be successful in medical school, I believe the most important is time management. Now that […]
Happy post Turkey Day, fellow medical and pre-medical students! Have you ever struggled with overeating due to school or life-related stress? I reached out to Katie […]
While working as a medical scribe for primary care physicians in a mainly integrative medicine clinic, almost 80% of the visit notes include a diagnosis of […]
Two summers ago I studied abroad in Germany and Austria to learn about the history of medicine in Europe through a Texas A&M University faculty-led program. […]
I am about two months into my first year of medical school at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and it’s been going, to say the […]
“The United States loses the equivalent of one small medical school or a large medical school class to suicide each year.”1 Fellow medical and pre-medical students, […]
Two summers ago I studied abroad in Germany and Austria to learn about the history of medicine in Europe through a Texas A&M University faculty-led program. […]
By Autumn Pace Last week Monday started as any normal Monday would – lots of coffee and a long traffic-filled commute to work before I finally […]
By Kelsey Lyon, OMS II During my first week of medical school we were administered the results of the Myers-Briggs personality survey that we were asked […]
By Kelsey Lyon, OMS II Saturday, October 10, 2015 is World Mental Health Day. As medical students, it is important that we address and maintain not […]
By Kelsey Lyon, OMS II School is back in session and we all know what that means! It means back to being in class everyday, doing […]
By: Cheri Dijamco, MS4 at UT School of Medicine at San Antonio Social Media Coordinator, Grassroots Organizing Action Committee It is well known that suicide rates […]
By: Kelsey Lyon The sun is shining, the birds are chirping and SCHOOL IS OUT FOR THE SUMMER! We are in the midst of the best […]
By Kelsey Lyon, OMS II When we think of wellness it is easy to get caught up on the dimensions of wellness that are largely emphasized in […]
Tracy Lee, OMS II A.T. Still University-SOMA Wellness Coordinator AMSA Trainee Wellness and Professionalism Committee As promised in my last post, I will give a variety […]
AMSA and national partner Kaplan have teamed up for a blog series featuring AMSA leadership from across the country. We are calling this series The Premed […]
Other resources/ Additional Information
- The Design Principles for Healthcare Renewal
- Weil Foundation: Transforming Healthcare
- IOM, Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public: A Summary of the February 2009 Summit.
- IOM, Committee on the Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine by the American Public Board on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in the United States
- Integrator Guide: Sections on CAM and Integrative Health in the Affordable Care Act-HR 3590
- Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Health Care
- Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine
- American College for Advancement in Medicine
- NCCIH multimedia resources
- American College of Preventive Medicine
- American College of Lifestyle Medicine
