"Saying 'we care about you' then gaslighting us when we tell you our concerns completely destroys our trust and faith in you as an organization" ~Anonymous Doctor I am often asked what does psychological safety in healthcare have to do with health equity and health quality? What does psychological safety have to do with workforce? In the Surgeon Ge...

"What destroys trust is when a hospital says 'we value you' and then in the same breath asks you to justify your worth by doing additional work unpaid" ~ Dr. A As physicians, we are committed to providing the highest quality of care and safety to our patients. However, it is difficult for a physician / healthcare worker to bring their best self whe...

 "In medicine, vulnerability is considered weak. We are told things like 'leave your feelings at the door'. There are no room for mistakes, and God forbid we do not know the answers to something… then our entire 12 + years of training is questioned. It's just not safe to be anything other than perfect as a physician" ~ Dr. C As physicians, we ...

 As a physician, I was conditioned to put myself last. This long-standing tendency likely began way before I hit medical school, but certainly my training reinforced it. I was an oldest child personality natural born caretaker, and while medical school reinforced this personality trait, residency exploited it. "The patient comes first", "Eat w...

I often say that Communication is 7% what you say and 93% everything else. But that doesn't mean words aren't important. In fact, they are incredibly important. Words are the encodings of our thoughts and feelings. Furthermore, the way we use words create pictures in the minds of others, which can imply or create meaning depending on how we use our...

Like many other important initiatives and movements, psychological safety is becoming a trend. However, as seen with other movements, it doesn't take long for people to begin misusing terms and using them to center themselves and manipulate others taking it from an important issue to a weaponized land mine. This is because with psychological safety...

Quiet quitting is a subtle, but significant, problem that many organizations are grappling with today. Unlike traditional resignations where employees formally submit their notice, quiet quitting happens under the radar. Employees who quietly quit become disenchanted, disengage from their work, withdraw from collaboration, reduce their productivity...

As a recovering conflict-avoidant, people-pleasing, feelings-avoidant introvert, having difficult conversations can be extremely challenging before, during, and afterwards. If in addition to that one happens to also be a highly sensitive processor who feels their feelings very deeply when they do surface, the experience feels that much more painful...

Leading is hard and there is no handbook. Yet, growing research is showing that the old ways of leading are not as effective and more likely to be harmful to our employees over time. However, the evidence shows that even if the employee becomes successful, there are both long-term mental and relationship consequences to this approach. There is grow...

In previous articles I have talked about psychological safety in the context of combating mistrust in healthcare from historically marginalized populations, however, what's not always obvious is the positive impact that cultivating psychological safety can have on physicians and healthcare providers. Physician well-being is a critical (but not alwa...