How are you feeling? What brings you to the doctor today? These questions, or questions like these, start our encounters with every patient we see as a clinical clerk. Yet we do not ask these questions to ourselves very often – or even take the time to go to the doctor ourselves. That is one of the reasons that the FMEQ’s Clerk Wellness Day is so important: it allows us, the medical trainees, to focus on our wellness for one day. The big picture hope for days such as this, and for adding wellness into medical curriculums, is to have medical graduates that are attuned to their own wellness and that this mindfulness lasts a lifetime.

The FMEQ has been organizing a Clerk Wellness Day since 2012. It all started in 2011 when a survey that they conducted of all clerks in Quebec showed that stress was high and was not well-managed among survey participants. This year’s edition will take place on March 9 2016 at L’Espace-Réunion (6610, rue Hutchison, Montréal). On this day all clerks are given the day off to attend the Clerk Wellness Day, which consists of conferences from physicians and workshops on topics from exercise to food. The best part is it is FREE. Check with your individual Faculty to ensure how you register your day off to attend.

Other resources to help you care for yourself do exist – some that you might even refer your patients to. However there is a program specifically for medical doctors: Quebec Physicians’ Health Program which is available for free to all medical students in Quebec.

This year the Québec College of Family Physicians (CQMF in French) will be present during the day. Please come visit our kiosk to learn about the benefits of the services we offer. Now you may ask yourself why is the Committee for the Future of Family Medicine of the CQMF is writing an article about the Clerk Wellness Day. It is because that we are like you or have recently been like you – a clinical clerk – and we realize that we need to take our wellness into our own hands just as much as we encourage our patients to do.

Wellness means different things to different people. Taking time to be with friends, exercise, sleeping, cooking and eating (and even studying for some)… So come explore on March 9 what defines your wellness.

Dre Annick Gauthier, PhD, MDCM 2017
Membre du comité de la relève, CQMF