We talked resident well-being on A Dose of Optimism

Resident well-being shows up in mission statements, wellness committees, and accreditation language, but there is little guidance on how to actually make it happen. Kevin and I recently had a chance to talk about this on KidsX’s A Dose of Optimism podcast, alongside other innovators thinking about how technological innovations can improve training and care.

The podcast episode

The episode is called “Scheduling, Simulation, and the Future of Resident Well-Being.” Our segment starts at 17:29 (listen on Spotify). We talk about how OSO Schedule got started, what surprised us in the first pilot year, and why we think scheduling deserves a bigger seat at the well-being table.

The problem we came to talk about

Well-being initiatives often focus on one-off celebrations or lunch appreciations. Those gestures matter, but they do not change the structural stressors residents live with every week: call pools, rotation sequencing, vacation windows, and the life events that do not wait for a convenient block.

In our view, the most actionable lever programs have is the schedule itself. When the published year reflects real requests inside coverage and educational rules, residents get more predictability and more agency. It doesn't always give everyone everything, but it does increase the likelihood of making a college reunion, placing a more flexible rotation to support fellowship interviews, or protecting time for family and recovery.

On the operational side, the story is familiar to every chief and program leader: when requests are collected but cannot be honored at scale, the schedule becomes a source of disappointment before the year even starts. Chiefs spend hours toiling to build an imperfect schedule that leaves both sides unhappy.

A few themes we hope you take away

• Scheduling is a well-being intervention. It is slower and less photogenic than a wellness day, but it affects every week of training.
• Chiefs and PDs deserve better tools. The job should not require 100-plus hours of fragile spreadsheet work each cycle—or a recovery break after every draft.
• Honoring requests is bounded, not unlimited. Coverage floors and educational requirements still bind the problem; the goal is to maximize what is feasible and explain what is not.
• The future is iterative. When inputs change mid-year, programs should regenerate instead of hand-patching a plan that was never designed to absorb change.

Let us know if it resonates

If the episode resonates, we would love to hear what scheduling friction looks like in your program. Reach out here!