Community Services and Memorialization 

After the initial communication of the news of a trainee death across GME, it is helpful to provide an opportunity for trainees, faculty, and staff to come together to begin to process their shock and grief.  Gatherings include leaders sharing common feelings people have in grief, provide crisis counselors on hand to meet with individuals, and allow small groups of people to come together to share.  Gatherings can be virtual or in person.  

Below are samples of the invitation, ground rules slide, and resources available:

Invitation to a Virtual Gathering 

Welcome and Ground Rules slide  

Some Thoughts on Coping with Grief 

Support Resources for Residents and Fellows 

Support Resources for Medical Students 

Online memorial pages and message boards have become common practice in the aftermath of a death. At times training programs/institutions may choose (with the permission and support of the deceased trainee’s family) to establish a memorial page on the program’s website or on a social networking site. With deaths by suicide, such pages should take care not to glamorize the death in ways that may lead other at risk trainees to identify with the person who died. It is therefore vital that memorial pages utilize safe messaging, include resources, be monitored, and be time-limited.

It is recommended that online memorial pages remain active for up to 30 to 60 days after the death, at which time they should be taken down and replaced with a statement acknowledging the caring and supportive messages that had been posted and encouraging trainees who wish to further honor their friend to consider other approaches.

If the deceased trainee’s friends create a memorial page of their own, it is important that the Crisis Response Team communicate with friends to ensure that the page includes safe messaging and accurate information. An example of recommended language for a friends and family memorial page for death by suicide could include: “The best way to honor your loved one is to seek help if you or someone you know is struggling.” When appropriate, memorial pages should also contain information about where a person in a suicidal crisis can get help (e.g National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK). Crisis Response Team members should also join any trainee-initiated memorial pages so that they can monitor and respond as appropriate.

Social media should be monitored for several weeks following the death. A member of the Crisis Response Team who is adept at social media can watch for distressed posts by other trainees, and also for posts that get into graphic details about suicide, pictures of location of death, or memes that make suicide seem like a positive outcome, e/g meme of picture from the movie Aladdin: “Genie, you’re free” that unfortunately went viral after Robin Williams’ death.