Message from Postgraduate Wellness Office
Dear Colleagues,
We want to take a moment to thank you for your dedication and service to the postgraduate trainees, and the public at this very challenging time. We know it has been particularly difficult on many who have had to self-isolate, provide additional clinical service, support trainees through exam postponements, or figure out how to find childcare in the face of the school closings. We hope you are all doing okay under these circumstances.
We want to let you know that The Postgraduate Wellness Office remains open for remote support via phone or video appointments.
You or the trainees can reach us in the usual way, by emailing pgwellness@utoronto.ca or leaving a message at 416-946-3074. We will do our best to schedule an appointment, or an intake triage appointment (depending on the number of requests we have) for trainees as soon as possible; we are working hard to book trainees within a few days of contact with us.
If you need to reach us directly, myself and Heather Flett are most easily reachable by email:
As a reminder, the following resources also remain open to the trainees for support:
PARO Helpline
The PARO 24 Hour Helpline is confidential support that is available to residents, their partners and family members, as well as medical students.
1-866-HELP-DOC (1.866.435.7362)
http://www.myparo.ca/helpline/
PHP – Physician Health Program
The Physician Health Program, through the OMA, offers confidential support for trainees and practicing physicians through live counselors available between 9am and 5pm.
1.800.851.6606
http://php.oma.org/what-we-do/
**As usual, if the trainee is experiencing a mental health emergency, please remember that Emergency departments are also a resource to them in these emergency situations.
At this time, in keeping with the general mandate to defer nonessential academic sessions, we are not providing Wellness workshops. We will re-evaluate this every few weeks. If your booked workshop is affected, our Office will contact you.
For any changes to our services, and for other information related to COVID 19 pandemic updates at the University, please check the Faculty of Medicine Website: https://medicine.utoronto.ca/news/coronavirus-your-safety-and-responsibility
Finally, we know that at times like these, our usual coping strategies can be quite taxed, and so we encourage you to take a few minutes (7 to be exact!) to watch this excellent video about coping by Drs. Robert Maunder and Jon Hunter, who are two of our Faculty of Medicine Psychiatrists from the Sinai Health System. Please share widely! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkz7vJOZ2HU
We are all in this together.
Best,
Julie Maggi
Director, Postgraduate Wellness Office
Heather Flett
Associate Director, Postgraduate Wellness Office
