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Caring Greatly podcast

The Caring Greatly podcast is a destination where healthcare leaders and other listeners are inspired to grow, lead, innovate and drive industry transformation. This award-winning, interview-style podcast creates space for people to share their perspective and connect to human-centered stories that reveal solutions, spark innovation and provide hope for a safer and brighter future of care.

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Diane W. Shannon, MD, MPH, PCC

Strategies to support and retain women physicians – Diane W. Shannon, MD, MPH, PCC

In this episode of Caring Greatly, Diane talks about the research exploring why women physicians tend to reduce work hours or leave their profession at higher rates than their male counterparts. The reasons are far more structural and cultural than biological, including differences in expectations and accountability – both on the part of fellow team members and of patients. She shares the underlying data behind this trend that point to fixes that are less about training and conformity and more centered on a shift in healthcare culture that values relationships and connection over transactions. It’s an approach that generally leads to better care outcomes. Diane concludes with her perspective on how structural and policy changes can support the long-term career viability and joy in practice for women physicians and other women clinicians.

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Jennifer K. Clark, MD

Lessons from palliative care help leaders address team member suffering to support their wellbeing – Jennifer K. Clark, MD

In this episode of Caring Greatly, Jennifer talks about how the core concepts of training from med-peds (internal medicine plus pediatrics) hospice and palliative care have informed her systems thinking and transformation approaches. She shares how palliative care challenges the notion in medicine that death is a failure and what can happen for team member wellbeing when leaders upend that assumption. Jennifer also delves into the thought framework of her new book, Suffer, which looks at the core needs of human beings and the value of suffering. Much of the framework is through the lens of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. While suffering is what happens when core needs go unmet, understanding human suffering helps illuminate the fundamental nature of needs and how they play out for patients and for care team members. Finally, Jennifer helps leaders connect the dots between understanding suffering and the opportunities for empathy, innovation and thriving when team members’ needs for safety, wellbeing and belonging are met.

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Christina Watlington, PhD and Christine McGuire, MSc
01.24.2025

Psychological first aid as a remedy to reduce mental health stigma – Christina Watlington, PhD and Christine McGuire, MSc

In this episode of Caring Greatly, Christina and Christine share the details of the Psychological First Aid (PFA) training they created and launched at ChristianaCare. Their training, which has reached more than 50% of leaders at ChristianaCare, uses an easy-to-remember three-step model of recognizing signs of stress or distress, supporting immediate recovery and referring team members to additional resources provided by ChristianaCare to support team member safety and wellbeing. As a result, the number of referrals to the organization’s Care for the Caregiver program has doubled. Essentially, PFA serves as a culture change mechanism to help reduce the stigma around mental health care. By giving leaders and bedside team members a shared vocabulary around safety and wellbeing, help-seeking behavior is being normalized. It’s also opening new horizons and expanding resources to support more elements of trauma recovery and trauma-informed care and leadership.

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Linda McHugh, MT, MBA, and Tria Deibert, MA
12.19.2024

Culture and process change to support team member safety and wellbeing – Linda McHugh, MT, MBA, and Tria Deibert, MA

In this episode of Caring Greatly, Linda and Tria talk about how culture affects team member safety and wellbeing. They share specifics about recent process and technology changes that have helped to build trust, connection and belonging between leaders and team members across clinical, operational and administrative teams. Linda and Tria talk about the data they use to direct cultural transformation, and why it’s important to ensure that culture recognizes and values team members as whole human beings in addition to the job skills and abilities they offer the organization. Finally, they describe how an intentional culture helps improve patient-family experience and outcomes.

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Bryan Batson, MD
11.19.2024

Making team member wellbeing a top strategic priority – Bryan Batson, MD

In this episode of Caring Greatly, Dr. Batson shares the changes he and his leadership team have made at Hattiesburg Clinic to support team member wellbeing. He talks about a physician onboarding process that supports new physicians through their first three years at the organization, the time when they are building leadership credibility, teamwork and habits that will support them throughout their tenure at the organization. Dr. Batson describes how, emerging from the pandemic, team members asked for more chances to connect socially and how the leaders at Hattiesburg Clinic ensure wellbeing efforts extend to all care team members. He also shares how this focus on human connection has resulted in exceptional outcomes for patients and team members alike.

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Daniele Ölveczky, MD
09.30.2024

Supporting diversity, equity and inclusion at the systemic, institutional and individual levels – Daniele Ölveczky, MD

In this episode of Caring Greatly, Daniele talks about the small and large actions that create diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging at the structural, institutional and individual levels. She shares the ways that privilege, in any form, can be leveraged to undo structural inequities and to create safety for individuals. She outlines the ways that BIDMC reaches out to the surrounding community to create pathways toward health equity as well as representation in healthcare careers. Daniele shares that equity and inclusion are rooted in healthcare data, and she closes with all of the ways to find hope and rise above political divisions toward inclusive service.

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