FHC #112: How the culture of medicine can change

Season eight of the Fixing Healthcare podcast continues its focus on the role of leadership in driving change. Our guest today is an expert in this area.

Jenny Chatman is Acting Dean at the Haas School of Business and the Paul Cortese Professor of Management at UC Berkeley. She’s a world-renowned researcher, teacher and consultant on leveraging organizational culture to boost team performance. Chatman is also editor-in-chief for the journal “Research in Organizational Behavior” (2019-2022) and co-director of the Berkeley Haas Center for Workplace Culture and Innovation.

In this interview, Chatman shares lessons in leadership and cultural change with Fixing Healthcare cohosts Dr. Robert Pearl and Jeremy Corr.

Throughout today’s episode, she discusses:

  • Organizational culture: what it is and isn’t
  • How doctors learn “the unwritten rules” of medical culture
  • How norms form and what control leaders have over them
  • Why handwashing isn’t as normal in medicine as you might think
  • Auditing and assessing norms as part of the culture-change process
  • The power of subcultures within a healthcare organization
  • How new leaders should approach cultural change in medicine
  • What to do if you find yourself in a toxic culture
  • Creating collectivist (vs. individualistic) goals in healthcare
  • More powerful: a common purpose or a common enemy?
  • Why gratitude goes a long way
  • How generative AI (like ChatGPT) will change medical culture

Tune in for the full interview and join the conversation on social media.

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Dr. Robert Pearl is the author of a book about medicine’s invisible yet highly influential physician culture. Check out “Uncaring: How Physician Culture Is Killing Doctors & Patients.” All profits from the book go to Doctors Without Borders.

Fixing Healthcare is a co-production of Dr. Robert Pearl and Jeremy Corr. Subscribe to the show via Apple, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you find podcasts. Join the conversation or suggest a guest by following the show on Twitter and LinkedIn.