Medical students are at high risk for burnout. Although support from family and partners is a powerful protective factor, medical schools rarely help these support givers stay connected to students. We report results from 9 medical schools implementing an innovative program, called \"Circles of Support\", which educates support givers about common experiences and challenges in the lives of medical students and suggests ways for support givers to offer effective support, thereby strengthening connections and reducing student burnout. In this interactive session, participants will discuss how their institutions harness the powerful protective power of support from family and loved ones and barriers to implementing such approaches, and methods for surmounting these barriers. This session is geared toward medical educators who seek to learn about and share their own approaches to preventing medical student burnout, with a special emphasis on intentionally empowering family and friends of medical students to offer strong support throughout the medical education process.
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