Exploring Authenticity and Belonging in Life

In this episode of the AWARE Podcast’s Cognition and Well-Being series, Stuart Slavin, MD, MEd and Anne Gravel Sullivan, PhD discuss the relationship between belonging and well-being with Dr. Mukta Panda, MD, MACP, FRCP-London. Dr. Panda, who is the Assistant Dean for Well-Being and Medical Student Education, as well as a Professor of Medicine at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine at Chattanooga, reflects upon her own struggle with well-being and how it ultimately led her to study the importance of a personal sense of belonging. Additionally, they analyze how well-being can be achieved when students and physicians can comfortably be their authentic selves, rather than attempting to fit into the molds that they feel pressured into being.