Resource Articles

When a person experiences, witnesses, or is confronted with an event or situation that involves actual or threatened death, serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others, he or she can experience fear, helplessness, and horror.  PTSD results when effects of exposure to a traumatic event persist beyond one month following the event. Please answer "Yes" or "No" if you have been exposed to or witnessed a traumatic event and have engaged in or experienced any of the following over the past month on a fairly consistent basis.

E-mail is a convenient form of communication, but it has its limitations and associated problems.  For example, it can be stressful to receive an e-mail from someone that has a “tone” that feels harsh or attacking.  The sender may not have intended to convey his or her message in that way, but the receiver may misinterpret or puzzle over the actual intent of the message. Here are 12 easy to follow tips for sending professional e-mails and reducing the potential for miscommunication:

​Work/Life Connections-EAP coordinates Crisis Intervention Services and Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) Services for the VUMC community. Definition: A Critical Incident is "any event which has the potential to produce unusual or distressing emotional symptoms such as an accident, injury, death, disaster, threat or act of violence, or other traumatic event at the workplace."

​An online screening is not a substitute for a complete mental health evaluation. It does not result in a diagnosis. It can, however, provide an indication of whether or not a person has symptoms consistent with a particular illness.

The winter holiday season is a time of stress; both good and bad. The anticipatory activity before the events can be followed by a whiplash of emotional post-holiday letdown when it is all over. The result may be feeling frazzled. Sometimes the simplest of things becomes the most precious. It is a time that we often postpone our regular self-care efforts and may over do it. Here are some Seasonal "Stressages" (stress-busting messages) to help us cope with the festivities.

Stress is inevitable. Whether it's triggered by an attacking lion in a pre-historic jungle or by the sales quotas of the "corporate jungle" of today, it is a fact of life. Today's stress may even be more intense and unrelenting than that felt by our ancestors.

It is natural for organisms in nature to gravitate toward homeostasis or equilibrium. Change, whether positive or negative, requires us to adapt, adopt, alter or accept. Change is inevitable. In a healthcare environment, change represents responses to changes in the marketplace, to economic pressures and to external forces. It is not a choice. It is necessary for survival.

It is not uncommon for healthcare or emergency workers to request some type of critical incident stress management services following an acute incident which they label as being particularly stressful for them. The good news is that such professionals are usually very resilient.

In any business, the greatest resource is people. In healthcare, it is the team of people who