Well-rested residents offer improved patient care, and UTMB just improved a space for residents to sleep, relax or meditate.
The remodeled residents and fellows lounge on the 12th floor of John Sealy Hospital reopened Oct. 29. The 12th floor space includes 31 sleep rooms, a meditation room, a lounge, showers, and spectacular views of the Gulf of Mexico.
Old blinds in outdated windows are gone in the common spaces. Now, new window treatments make the gulf view possible.
“It’s a huge improvement,” said Pankhuri Banerjee, a neurology resident. “The best thing was it was really dark in the sleep room. It’s what we want in the middle of the night.”
Because the space includes work desks, she doesn’t have to run to another computer on another floor of the hospital.
“The whole space is welcoming and warm,” Banerjee said. “They won me over with the massage chairs.”
Fifteen years ago, the 12th floor was the hospital’s executive suite where Dr. Alvin Louis “Al” LeBlanc had an office. LeBlanc served as vice president of UTMB Hospitals and Clinics and as the associate dean for graduate medical education. It was his idea 15 years ago to transform the executive suite into sleep rooms for residents.
As time passed, the residents’ area needed an upgrade, said Dr. Thomas Blackwell, the associate dean for graduate medical education at UTMB.
“We found about $1 million in deferred maintenance funding, and we used that $1 million to get new floors, new window treatments, new ceilings, new lighting, and new furniture throughout the sleep quarters,” Blackwell said.
“There’s clear data analytics that physicians who are well, or not burned out, provide better health care and safer health care, and that's good for all of our patients,” he said. “This actually is for the residents, but the side effect of it is it improves patient care.”
UTMB has 650 residents and fellows, said Virginia Simmons, administrative director of graduate medical education. In the next five years, UTMB could gain another 100 resident slots. The comfortable sleep rooms and lounge space could be used to recruit new residents.
Another feature is security and privacy. Not only do the sleep rooms have new locks, but access to the 12th floor is limited to only residents and fellows. Faculty and medical students do not have access to the lounge or to the sleep rooms, even though some have asked.
Dr. LeBlanc, who died in 2014, should get the credit for emphasizing residents’ wellness, Blackwell said as he nodded to a portrait of LeBlanc hanging by the elevator entrance. His widow, Mary LeBlanc, and other members of the family attended the grand opening and toured the remodeled space.
“I’m just amazed,” Mary LeBlanc said. “I could hang out here myself.”
“We appreciate you, Mary, and your entire family because many of your children work here at UTMB and we're grateful for that,” Raimer said. “We're grateful that the LeBlanc legacy lives on in so many ways.”