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Pajamas & Purpose: A Residency Wellness Night In
A FREE 2.5-hour virtual wellness night in for Black women entering residency — grounded, supported, and emotionally prepared for what comes next.
Reserve Your Spot
You Are About to Cross a Threshold
One day you are a high-achieving student. The next, you are a physician — with real responsibility, real stakes, and real people depending on your decisions. The world may celebrate this moment as pure achievement. But your nervous system may experience it as shock, pressure, and disorientation.
This space was created for that truth. Not the polished version of you entering residency. But the full, human version — the one quietly holding questions that don't get airtime in medical education.
The Questions You May Be Holding
  • "Am I really ready for this?"
  • "Why does this feel heavier than I expected?"
  • "How do I take care of myself without falling behind?"
  • "Who am I becoming in this process?"
You don't have to hold these questions alone.
What This Experience Is
Pajamas & Purpose is a gentle, evidence-informed wellness circle designed specifically for Black women entering residency. This is not a lecture. This is not performance. This is not about pushing through.
Psychology & Science
Residency transition science, nervous system education, and burnout prevention frameworks grounded in real research.
Reflective Practice
Guided exercises that invite honest self-inquiry — space to exhale, process, and reconnect with yourself before the intensity begins.
Community Connection
Intimate conversations with other Black women who truly get it — building bonds before training pulls you in every direction.
Joy-Based Grounding
Practical tools that treat joy and pleasure as nervous system resources — not luxuries to be earned after burnout sets in.

This is a soft landing space before the intensity begins — not one more thing on your to-do list.
Rooted in Evidence. Grounded in Care.
This experience is built on a foundation of rigorous, compassionate research — because you deserve support that honors both the science of stress and the full humanity of becoming a physician.
The frameworks used are drawn from leading institutions and lived physician experience, translated into tools you can actually use in your daily life as a trainee.
AMA & ACGME Frameworks
Residency well-being and burnout prevention research from leading medical education bodies.
Transition Stress Science
Identity shift literature specific to the UME → GME transition and what it means cognitively and emotionally.
Nervous System Regulation
Evidence-based tools for physiological self-regulation in high-demand clinical environments.
What Makes This Different
This is not just education. It is integration. Most wellness offerings tell you what to do. This experience gives you the space to actually feel, process, and prepare — together.
Guided Reflection
Gentle prompts that help you get honest with yourself — without judgment or pressure to perform.
Breakout Conversations
Optional, low-pressure small group conversations with women who are standing at the same threshold or have crossed it.
Grounding Practices
Hands-on nervous system regulation techniques you can return to throughout residency — not just tonight.
Space to Be Human
No right answers. No performance. Just permission to exhale before stepping into a very non-human schedule.
This Experience Is For You If...
You are a Black woman entering residency this July — and you want more than just survival tips. You want to enter this chapter grounded, not depleted.
You are preparing for the emotional shift from student → physician
You want tools for mental, emotional, and physical well-being that actually fit your life
You are looking for community before training begins — not after you're already running on empty
You are tired of being told to "just be resilient" without being given real support
You want to enter residency feeling whole — not just prepared
Event Details
Join Us for a Night In
Date
Thursday, June 11
Time
7:30 PM Eastern — 2.5-hour experience
Location
Virtual via Zoom — join from anywhere
Dress Code
Pajamas encouraged — comfort is part of care
Cost
Free — this experience is our gift to you

This is an intimate, small-group experience. Spots are limited to ensure quality connection and support for every attendee.
What We'll Explore Together
Across our 2.5 hours, we will gently and intentionally move through six themes — each one designed to meet you where you are and give you something real to carry forward.
1
When the Role Becomes Real
Understanding the identity and cognitive shift in the UME → GME transition — why disorientation is a normal, not a sign of unreadiness.
2
Listening for Early Signals
Recognizing how stress and emotional overload first appear in your body and mind — noticing drift before it becomes depletion.
3
Building Your Circle
Intentionally naming your support system before residency begins — the people, places, and practices that keep you grounded.
4
Your Body Is Part of the Equation
Exploring sleep disruption, fatigue, and physiological stress — with realistic, protective strategies rooted in compassion, not perfection.
5
Staying Connected to Yourself
Navigating identity shifts and belonging — protecting the parts of you that exist beyond your white coat.
6
Joy as a Protective Practice
Reframing joy as a nervous system resource — learning how intentional moments of connection sustain you in high-demand training.
About Your Facilitator
This experience is led by Kelly D. Holder, PhD, a clinical psychologist with over 20 years in the field and more than a decade of specialized focus on healthcare providers, medical trainees, and physician well-being. Her work sits at the intersection of high-achievement and high-humanity — helping clinicians stay whole in systems that often ask them to disappear.
She has served as Chief Well-Being Officer at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University and as Director of Professional Mental Health at Penn State College of Medicine. She currently serves as Director of Oncology Mental Health and Wellness for the Cancer Network of West Michigan.
"Helping high-achieving humans stay whole in high-demand systems."
20+ Years
Clinical psychology practice
Specialty Areas
Residency well-being, burnout prevention, identity transitions in medicine
Institutional Leadership
Brown University · Penn State University · Cancer Network of West Michigan
Your Soft Landing Starts Here
You are not just entering residency. You are entering a version of yourself that will be stretched, shaped, and challenged in ways you cannot fully predict yet. But you do not have to enter it disconnected from yourself.
Support Before Crisis
Because waiting until you're depleted is not a wellness strategy.
Tools Before Overwhelm
Because you deserve practical resources before the storm, not during it.
Community Before Isolation
Because connection is a clinical skill — and you need it too.
Joy That Is Not Postponed
Because you are allowed to feel good now — not only after you've earned it.
Let this be the evening you choose yourself — before residency asks you to choose everything else first.

This event is completely free. This is our gift to you, before residency begins.
Questions? Email [email protected]