The Center for Resiliency at Dell Children’s Medical Center reconnects physicians and healthcare professionals to their sense of personal and professional calling inherent in healthcare. Our tools for cultivating capacity promote a transformation of medical culture towards resiliency and furthers work/life integration.

We provide support services and professional development resources to maximize the personal and professional, including Physicians, medical students, nurses, everyone working at Dell Children’s, including patient-facing and non-patient-facing workers in in-patient and out-patient settings, in addition to Community Pediatricians

We also promote physician and healthcare professionals’ accountability and involvement with hospital leadership to influence the systemic restructuring needed to build a more resilient culture.

The Center offers various programs and events.

1. Resiliency Rounds – a monthly, departmental opportunity for teams to check in with one another and focus on developing and deepening working relationships. We discuss strategies and best practices for staff to grow together as a department and learn personal practices of resiliency that can be incorporated into the workday.
2. Schwartz Rounds – An approach based off the Schwartz Center model, Schwartz Rounds is a bimonthly panel discussion tailored to a topic or a patient case providing the participants the opportunity to express the human-side of their experience in healthcare.  Schwartz Rounds are popular interactive large-group discussions that allow the greater hospital community to process and work through difficult experiences.
3. Workshops – special events that allow for staff to do a deep dive into a certain topic. One popular topic, “Professional Boundaries: The Many Shades of Gray,” focuses on boundaries and burnout in the workplace.
4. Retreats – an opportunity for staff to dialogue about the difficult realities of their work, develop as a team, and explore different strategies for self-care. Retreats are tailored to fit specific needs and specifications, to focus on strengthening interpersonal relationships and encourage team members.
5. Counseling – individual one-on-one counseling sessions for staff. Often, counseling will be a component of Resiliency Rounds meetings, but is always available to physicians and nurses and other healthcare providers in need of professional, emotional and spiritual support

“A Brief Self Compassion Training Program for Pediatric Medical Professionals.”

Partnership with Dr. Kristin Neff at the University of Texas at Austin and Dr. Chris Germer at Harvard Medical School to develop a resiliency curriculum for healthcare providers that builds resiliency and provides practical tools to prevent burnout.

This is the first quantitative study worldwide with resiliency in healthcare.  The preliminary results show increases in job satisfaction, decreases in stress, anxiety and depression, increases in mindfulness, and overall increases in wellbeing.​

“A Brief Self Compassion Training Program for Parents of Children with Chronic Illness”

This second study has been initiated with the same curriculum with parents of children with chronic illness and rare disease

This is the only study of its kind focusing on the parent experience with the hope of identifying which practices build resiliency in this critical population.

“Exploration of Techno-Stress Among Hospital Employees”

In partnership with the Center for Health Communication at the University of Texas at Austin, this study is identifying what aspects of techno-stress impede work in healthcare with the aim to help transform the ways people interact with their ICTs (information communication technologies) to make them happier, healthier employees.