Fostering Resiliency 1 and a half day Retreat

This immersive retreat offers a space for physicians to step back, reflect on burn out and learn skills in mindfulness-based approaches to resiliency. Our approach to developing personal resilience is based on cultivating discernment, equanimity and compassion, so that you are wiser in your work, more connected to your colleagues, patients, friends and family, and ultimately able to find greater satisfaction in what you do.

Burnout is a normal response to working in a system where the demands on our internal reserves outstrip our ability to replenish those reserves. One of the first steps in creating meaningful, effective systemic change is to shift our habitual reactions to daily stressors and burnout triggers. In this mindfulness-based meditation retreat for physicians, we will be drawing on Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), an integration of mindfulness meditation practices and elements of cognitive therapy, to offer a different way to identify and encounter habitual patterns of thinking, feeling and behaviour that can lead to overwork and stress. Development of specific burnout prevention strategies is included in the later stages of the program. Specific tools to develop equanimity, adapted from Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, will be introduced, and the applied integration of these into daily personal and work life will be practiced.

Retreat structure consists of large group, teacher-guided mindfulness practices, including sitting, mindful movement and body scan meditations as taught in MBCT. Teacher-guided discussion, with a focus on meditation technique, supports the cultivation of sustained, moment-to-moment attention. Periods of silence, including guided practice, further support a deepening of mindfulness skills. There will be the option of taking breaks in silence to support continuity of practice.

Presenters

Mark Lau, PhD

Mark A. Lau, PhD, R Psych, who worked with Zindel Segal for 11 years, has 25 years experience as an internationally respected MBCT teacher, trainer and researcher. Mark is an MBCT mentor with the UCSD Mindfulness-Based Professional Training Institute, and is one of a handful of MBCT trainers who provide the 5-day MBCT Professional Training in North America. His academic work focuses on the mechanisms underlying MBCT’s effectiveness and evaluating effective methods of disseminating MBCT. Together with Andrew, he facilitates Fostering Resiliency retreats for health care professioanls and their partners.

Andrea Grabovac, MD

Andrea Grabovac, MD, FRCPC, is an inpatient psychiatrist at Vancouver Hospital. She has taught and supervised MBCT for 10 years. She is a mentor with the UCSD Mindfulness-Based Professional Training Institute, and teaches the 5-day MBCT Professional Training in North America. Her academic work focuses on the development of clinician competency in delivering mindfulness-based interventions. As a co-founder of the North American Chapter of the Mindfulness integrated Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (MiCBT) Institute, she trains mental health clinicians in implementing MiCBT both for themselves and with clients. Together with Mark, she facilitates Fostering Resiliency retreats for health care professionals and their partners.

Thursday Jan 30: 5:30pm-9:00pm (pre-retreat dinner)

Friday Jan 31: 8:30am- 4:45pm

This event will be accredited with 9.25 Mainpro+ credits and certified by the College of Family Physicians. In addition to CME credits we are offering a small stipend to complete an online evaluation 6 months after the retreat.