In the first part of this two-part podcast, Sibyl and Lorna discuss the intersection of being a PhD student and wellbeing. They cover themes of cultures of overwork and acceptance of stress, relationship of student/staff wellbeing and individual vs structural responsibility. This episode belongs to Podcast series: Student Wellbeing↗️.
Lorna begins with a story about health and safety training she did as a Lab Manager. She was surprised when this training centred less on physical safety, and more on the effects of stress on students and staff in labs.
‘if you go to a lab and your laboratory practices is poor, and you’re exposing yourself to chemicals, that’s you not doing your job properly […] but we have this feeling that to do your job properly, you’re having to work really, really hard all the time, so there’s a different motivation to address it as a problem’
They discuss the acceptance of stress and overwork, and prevalence of burn out.
Lorna was involved with a multi-institution initiative focused on breaking barriers to participation. The group included PhD students, postdocs and academics sharing experiences and ideas around poor ill health and mental wellbeing as a barrier to participation in the student body and to STEM careers. The team felt best practice guidance was needed on conversations about wellbeing and training.
We discussed the significance of this initiative being an extra, voluntary commitment to already busy people, and everyone involved being a woman.
‘the emphasis on you as individuals or as a collective to somehow come up with the answers… rather than the emphasis being on the institution or the sector’
This led onto a conversation about the relationship between student and staff wellbeing.
‘we talk about student wellbeing a lot, but staff wellbeing doesn’t quite get [the same attention] … and the students are aware of this’
Lorna spoke about PhD students’ growing awareness of staff being burnt out. We discussed how this can affect people’s ability to recognise and support students with their own wellbeing. It also undermines the messaging around the importance of wellbeing for students when they see staff suffering.
Sibyl discusses a holistic approach to wellbeing within universities as proposed in a 2021 article on the topic by Liz Brewster et al in the Journal of Further and Higher Education↗️. Lorna builds on this by suggesting that good research is antithetical to a stressed and overwhelmed brain, and also how cultures of stress can affect collegial relationships within research groups. A culture of overwork doesn’t necessarily produce more, or better, research and teaching.
Timestamps:
(02:01): PhD journey and well-being, stress as a health and safety issue
(05:25): Why do you think stress is not taken seriously?
(08:01): Conversations surrounding PhD students and well-being
(11:38): Individual vs structural responsibility
(17:17): relationship between student and staff wellbeing.
Sibyl Adam is a Student Wellbeing adviser. Lorna Street is a lecturer at the School of Geosciences.
Episode produced and edited by:
Sylvia Joshua Western
Sylvia is currently doing her PhD in Clinical Education at The University of Edinburgh and has a Master’s degree in Clinical Education. Her PhD research explores test-wise behaviours in Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) context. Coming from a dental background, she enjoys learning about and researching clinical assessments. She works part-time as a PhD intern at Teaching Matters, the University’s largest blog and podcast platform through Employ.ed scheme at the Institute of Academic Development.
Twitter/X: @sylviawestern↗️
