Balint Groups

Dr. Janet Walker, current president of the National Balint Society, is a retired family physician who spent 20 years in the Air Force, before facilitating and teaching Balint groups for healthcare professionals and medical students like Morgan Black. Morgan learned much about Balint groups and their benefits firsthand when she began participating with her classmates. Balint is a great way to strengthen patient-provider interactions and receive collaborative support on difficult cases. Hear why Dr. Walker believes in Balint so much that she’s starting a virtual Balint group for rural clinicians.

Additional Information:

• To find out more about how to participate in a virtual Balint group, please contact Dr. Janet Walker: janet.walker@wsu.edu 
• Huang et al. “Effect of Balint group training on burnout and quality of work life among intensive care nurses: A randomized controlled trial.” Neurology, Psychiatry and Brain Research. 2020: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0941950019301101 
• Huang et al. “A Randomized Controlled Trial of Balint Groups to Prevent Burnout Among Residents in China.” Frontiers in Psychiatry. 2020: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00957/full
• Kjeldmand et al. “Balint Groups as a Means to Increase Job Satisfaction and Prevent Burnout Among General Practitioners.” Annals of Family Medicine. 2008: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2267420/  

“Finding Joy: The Health Care Professional’s Journey to Well-being" is a podcast resource developed by a team of interprofessional education researchers from Washington State University Health Sciences Spokane. They’re promoting well-being among students, faculty, and healthcare professionals during challenging times. Funding is provided by the Health Resources and Services Administration.

The Interprofessional Education Research team wishes to thank the following individuals for their invaluable contributions to this project:

• Dr. Barb Richardson, nurse, educator, and interprofessional champion;

• Cameron Cupp, creator of the “Finding Joy” musical score and current enrollee at WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine;

• Washington State University staff from Marketing and Communications, Financial Services, and the Collaboration for Interprofessional Health Education Research and Scholarship; and

• Claire Martin-Tellis, Executive Producer, and Solen Aref, student intern, who developed the first five episodes of the “Finding Joy” podcast.

This episode of “Finding Joy” was produced by Doug Nadvornick, Program Director, Spokane Public Radio.

If you would like to reach out, please contact our team by sending an email to: medicine.ipoc@wsu.edu We also encourage you to visit our podcast blog as well as our team's website at: https://opioideducation.wsu.edu/about/.