Wellness Isn’t an Option. It’s an Imperative.
As the school year quickly crests to a loud crescendo — your workload building and the commitments swelling — it’s easy to sacrifice your wellbeing.
It’s an understandable response. Work occasionally compels our attention to the distraction of everything else and we may need to skip a meal or miss a workout in order to meet our obligations. But, when “occasionally” becomes “regularly” or “always” — that’s a problem.
The work we do here is important. And it’s hard. But if we’re going to do it — and do it well — for a long period of time, we need to ensure we do it in balance with our wellness. And as difficult as our workload may seem now, it doesn’t necessarily ease. The challenges we face today are replaced by new challenges tomorrow. We must ensure our work and our wellness can coexist.
So, I encourage you to embrace a work-life balance that ensures you maintain your wellness. Arising from our extensive consultations of more than 400 people for our new strategic plan, which was previewed in last week’s Dean’s Report in advance of final approval from Faculty Council, promoting wellness was identified as one of our enablers to achieve the larger goals we seek.
And so, I want to use this opportunity to promote the many wellness services available to students, faculty and staff. I hope you will call upon these services when necessary, but also adopt the balance required to ensure work does not subsume your health and wellbeing.
Students
• U of T Student Health and Wellness Centre
• Office of Health Professions Student Affairs
• Wellness at UTM
• Post MD Program Wellness Resources
• GLSE Student Wellness
• Recreation @ U of T
• HealthyU
Faculty & Staff
• Employee & Family Assistance Program
• Joint Membership Plan
It is possible for us to ensure wellness within our Faculty and sustainability in our workload without sacrificing our commitment to excellence.
Trevor Young
Dean, Faculty of Medicine
Vice Provost, Relations with Health Care Institutions
