Students at the School of Medicine keep up a fast pace, but when they do get a break they have the perfect place to go: the fifth-floor Wellness Wing.
The large room, once the curriculum office, was remodeled with financial help from the school’s Alumni Association and stocked with sports equipment, an electric massage chair and other amenities with help from the Friends group. Since it opened in May 2018, the Wellness Wing has offered everything from a massage chair, soothing music and free herbal tea to books and magazines on taking care of yourself, and tables loaded with puzzles, coloring books and arts and crafts supplies.
Niloofar Shahmohammadi, the school’s wellness program coordinator who brought the Wellness Wing to life, said, “This is our official wellness place where you can take a break, step away and then get back to what you need to do.”
Besides being a good place to decompress informally, the wing has offered yoga classes and will again this semester. That schedule hasn’t been set yet, but Shahmohammadi said the class again will be taught by a trained instructor from the Swinney Center on UMKC’s Volker Campus.
The wing also has sports equipment, donated by the Friends, that can be checked out when the weather is good for soccer, Frisbee or tossing around a football.
“This is a little oasis where you can step away in the middle of your day, maybe during your lunch break, maybe in a break between classes, step in here and get rejuvenated,” Shahmohammadi said.
