Caring Greatly

In this episode of Caring Greatly, Dr. Gould shares how and why she created the Diversity in Nurse Anesthesia Mentorship Program, a program designed to support nurses from under-represented groups as they learn about and pursue advanced anesthesia education and careers. She describes how the program aims to create smoother pathways to advanced credentialing to students and mid-career nurses who ma...

In this episode of Caring Greatly, Dr. Chosewood talks about the critical role frontline leaders play in supporting team member safety and wellbeing. He delves into how frontline leaders play a role in the three P’s of total worker health – policies, programs and practices – both influencing their creation and overseeing their implementation. He talks about how frontline leaders are essential to m...

Nadia Charguia, MD, is an associate professor and child psychiatrist with the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also the Director for the Taking Care of Our Own Program and serves as the Executive Medical Director for UNC Healthcare’s Integrated Wellbeing Program, leading wellbeing efforts systemwide. In this role, Dr. Charguia works to directly to...

Joseph “Jody” Stern, MD, is a board-certified neurosurgeon, author and speaker. In 2015, Dr. Stern lost his sister to a nearly year-long battle with leukemia. Through this loss, his encounters with medical professionals, and his own experience as a neurosurgeon, Dr. Stern realized the need to integrate compassion and empathy into the medical field. He has since become committed to deepening and hu...

John Howard, MD, MPH, JD, LLM, MBA, serves as Director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Administrator of the World Trade Center Health Program in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. He first served as Director of NIOSH from 2002 through 2008 and is currently serving his fourth six-year term starting in 2021. Prior to his...

Educated at the University of Kansas School of Medicine and trained at the Medical University of South Carolina and the Harvard fellowship in Palliative Care Education and Practice, Jennifer K. Clark, MD, has been in the world of healthcare for more than 20 years. With Med-Peds training and board certification in the subspecialty of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Dr. Clark is a physician and hea...

In this episode of Caring Greatly, Dr. Geiger talks about the need to support nurses holistically through an approach that Ingenovis calls ACT, which stands for Advocacy, Career, and Tools. Based on interdisciplinary research, Dr. Geiger and her team built the approach as a means of combatting burnout and building resilience at both the structural and individual levels. By advocating for what nurs...

In this episode of Caring Greatly, Mr. Forti shares the science of autonomic downregulation as a focal point for individual wellbeing. While he is an advocate for system change, he believes that those in the healing profession also have a moral obligation to care for their personal wellbeing, given the critical nature of the work they do and the proven links between wellbeing and patient care outc...

In this episode of Caring Greatly, Dr. Sexton talks about his team’s focus on providing accessible, evidence-based wellbeing practice to healthcare team members across the country. His five-part training covers gratitude, work-life balance, self-compassion, awe and wonder, and group-level wellbeing. The approach mixes didactic learning on the science behind wellbeing practices as well as time to p...

In this episode, Dr. Harry and I talk about the principles of cognitive load theory and how they apply to the practice of medicine. We discuss individual, team, and systems approaches to managing and minimizing cognitive load by removing extraneous load from system processes and technologies. We talk about the need to bring human factors engineering science and principles into healthcare so that l...

In this episode, Dr. Ofri and I talk about an article she recently published in the New Yorker titled, “The Curious Side Effects of Medical Transparency.” We delve into how the act of exposing medical notes to patients necessarily changes their purpose and their content, and how that, in turn, changes the thinking processes of clinicians. We talk about how art and expression are both integral to a...

In this episode, Dr. Fisher and I talk about how he came to medicine and his experience of burnout, depression, and disillusionment in his early career. That experience led him to take a deep dive into ancient wisdom traditions, but with a scientist’s mind. We look at the seven traits of the heart (steadiness, wisdom, openness, wholeness, courage, lightness and warmth) and how bringing these into...

In this episode, Dr. Rushton and I talk about the concept of values discordance, and what happens when a person perceives their personal or professional values to be out of alignment with their organization’s values. We look at the ways values play out in an organization – through leadership, decision making, and budgeting. We dig into the link between values and moral injury, and how ethics consi...

In this episode, Dr. DeChant and Liz Boehm talk about what’s different about workplace transformation in the trailing edge of the COVID-19 pandemic. We look at the need to rethink workload as an antidote to burnout, digging deeper than the concept of exhaustion into the causes of cynicism and inefficacy. This means delving into concepts such as respect, values, and community connection. Dr. DeChan...

In this episode, Mr. Feist and I talk about the factors that led to Dr. Breen’s death by suicide in 2020. Chief among these was a fear of losing her medical license if it became known that she had needed mental health support. This legacy is what has led the Foundation to launch a campaign to eliminate intrusive mental health questions from healthcare professional licensure and credentialing proce...

In this episode, Dr. Bukovac and I talk about the factors in obstetrics that lead to physician burnout – especially the way that clinical practice is structured in a way that creates conflicts of time, attention and clinical expertise. Dr. Bukovac advocates for a fundamental restructuring of obstetrics training and operations that encourages physicians to specialize in office care, hospital care,...

In this episode, Dr. Rushton and I talk about the current divide between advocates of system change to improve clinician well-being, and those promoting personal resilience and well-being training. We look at the challenges of managing polarities as leaders embrace a both/and approach to team member well-being. Dr. Rushton shares the specifics of a personal resilience training that equips nurses a...

In this episode, Dr. Raso and I talk about her latest research looking at authentic leadership, healthy work environment, team-member well-being, and nurse retention. In it, she uncovered a remarkable resilience of nurse leaders to continue leading with authenticity and humanity, even as the work environment for nurses has diminished. We talk about the need to support nurse leaders with the same p...

In this episode, Dr. Woodruff and I talk about the central role that trust plays in supporting team member safety and well-being. While trust is not an unusual concept in leadership, Dr. Woodruff takes an expansive view, connecting it to every process that an individual interacts with within a system. He believes that any process that isn’t explicitly designed to build trust – by showing respect a...

Drs. Farley and Shah recently spearheaded a collaboration with leaders from the AMA, AHA, CEO Coalition, Dr. Lorna Breen Foundation, IHI, and National Academy of Medicine (NAM) to create the 2022 Healthcare Workforce Rescue Package. The package was devised to help leaders zero in on the most impactful team member well-being efforts to undertake at the current stage of the pandemic. In this episode...

In this episode, Dr. Sherman and I discuss the transformative changes that are happening in the healthcare workforce, led by three critical trends: COVID-related turnover and travel; mental health challenges, and PTSD, and the shifting demographics of the workplace. We discuss how these trends are causing dramatic shifts in the structure of healthcare work and challenging leaders to find the flexi...

In this episode of the Caring Greatly™ podcast, Dr. DeRienzo and I discuss his new orientation to the “why” behind care transformation. Like most quality improvement leaders, Dr. DeRienzo’s focus has long been on the triple aim of improved care quality, reduced cost, and improved experience. But the work he’s focusing on now is creating energy and opportunity for a greater focus on health equity,...

In this episode, Dr. Mate and I talk about research the IHI recently completed into a broadened definition of team member safety and well-being put forth by the CEO Coalition, a group of US-based healthcare CEOs who see team member safety and well-being as an essential component of healthcare efficacy and sustainability. The CEO Coalition’s Heart of Safety Declaration of Principles expands the def...

In this episode, Dr. Rizzo and I talk about the impetus behind creating the Encore Physicians Program, and the benefit it brings to retired physicians, community health centers, and the patients they serve. We look at the synergy and learning opportunities provided by linking both primary care and specialty physicians to the patients who seek care at community health centers, as well as the role o...

In this episode, Dr. Cziraky and I talk about her personal and practice transformation through a shift from transactional to relationship-based care, both with her team members and her patients. We talk about how a drive toward efficiency had left her feeling depleted and disconnected from her work. In early 2020, Dr. Cziraky was introduced to the work of the Institute for Healthcare Excellence th...