How have you been supporting your OWN mental health as a pediatric oncology health care provider, throughout this pandemic? Part 1/2

 In late April 2021, we informally discussed within our social media group how we were coping with COVID-19 and what resources we had available to us to support our mental health. We realized this could be great testimonies to share on the blog and a good conversation starter. Please get in touch with us if you want to tell us your OWN story!

Dora Correia, radiation oncologist from Boston, USA - May 2021

"After an amazing response to the COVID-19 surge (that I tried to capture here), Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)/Mass General Brigham (MGB), in Boston, the U.S.A, aware of the importance of self-care during this challenging time, assembled several resources to tackle the expected wave of mental health issues. 

As an example, the Center for Faculty Development Office for Well-Being provides useful initiatives to promote self-care, increase resilience, and create a positive work culture, by working in collaboration with other programs across MGB including, but not limited to, the Employee Assistance Program, the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine at MGH, the Frigoletto Committee on Physician Well-Being/Mass General Physicians Organization and the Center for Physician Well-Being in the Mass General Department of Medicine. One of their initiatives is Well-Being Education Grants (up to $750 per year) to help defray the cost of professional training or continuing education around resilience and well-being. Another one was piloting stress resiliency virtual courses targeted to different working groups, which was so good that after it was over, we continued hosting them by ourselves. 

Apart from the already-in-place telephonic/virtual consultations, on-demand webinars also in the form of podcasts, accessibility was ensured with time and media flexibility: not only Internet Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is available after a pre-assessment, but also support on our smartphones is offered through 2021 via the pro versions of mental health applications, such as Headspace or Koa Foundations.

Furthermore, the MGH Workplace Well-Being Collaborative has made the popular "Going Home Checklist" (see below) available for all interested employees, either in a plastic version to attach to our badge or, as in my department, as a copy on the way out. 

As mentioned in this MGH blog post, the six pillars for a healthy lifestyle are nutrition, movement, mindfulness/mental imagery, sleep, the power of thought, and social support. The latter has been felt from the community towards the hospital staff throughout this past year, with several types of donations, discounts, or gratitude messages broadly displayed.

Aware that there is so much you can do individually, other innovative tools were early on made available to decrease the burden of external chronic stress, such as the MGB Community Connects platform for coworkers to help balance their work-life, or new parenting and child care resources. To tackle the lack of social interactions important for networking and job search, two other platforms were created: "Mentor MGB", and an internal job database platform for researches. In my case, I created a monthly virtual event called "Social Connection" to help bring a sense of community among MGH postdoctoral fellows and graduates during this time of physical distancing.

As we are in this together, several resources are public, like the mental health webinars from the McLean hospital, or targeted interventions such as on the youth."

Alejandra Casanovas, pediatric oncologist from Buenos Aires, Argentina - June 2021

"Since the beginning of the pandemic, many things have changed in the care at my hospital. Each service was organized a little in its own way, depending on the demand and the urgency of each specialty. In the case of Hemato Oncology, during the 6 months that the phase 1 quarantine lasted, we divided the week among the staff doctors so that they were covered by two professionals every day, the residency had a similar division. Due to the kind of patients we see, we have not had much contact with positive COVID patients, in any case, we were not exempt from the stress caused by the modification in the work modality, the care, etc. During that time, a group of specialists from the mental health team made themselves available to the hospital professionals to accompany us in such a difficult moment. I do not have the data of how many people attended, but I think it was a very important and non-invasive initiative of that service"