Courage at the Testing Point: Dr. Don Berwick on Healthcare, Power, and Possibility

Welcome back, dear colleague!

In our latest Courageous Conversation, Dr. Don Berwick, former CMS Administrator and founding CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, joined us for an unflinching look at the state of U.S. healthcare and the courage required to change it.

Dr. Berwick described the system as “a mess on top of a mess”: wasteful, inequitable, and captured by moneyed interests. Yet within this broken landscape, clinicians continue to deliver extraordinary care every day.

Key insights included:

• Money, Power, and Workforce Shortages. Healthcare is “a money machine” where wealth protects wealth, making reform difficult. Visa restrictions and workforce shortages—affecting not just doctors but nurses and low-wage workers are deepening inequities and straining care.

• The Soft Underbelly. Medical debt, affecting one in three families, is both unnecessary and solvable, a starting point for collective action.

• Rebuilding Trust. Beyond policy fights, leaders must renew relationships with communities to spark a broader movement.

• A Kinder Future. “We could have a healthcare system that begins with kindness and compassion as its compass,” Berwick reminded us.

The call is clear: courage, connection, and community action are not optional, they are the path forward.

We invite you to train your HEART!

Are you seeking ways to help your community by addressing health inequity issues?

• Or do you want to transform how we practice medicine or how you and your colleagues are treated?

• Creating change requires a collective effort, and you don't have to start this journey alone.

• That’s why we created HEART! Advocacy Training for Courageous Clinicians.

As a clinician, you witness firsthand the uneven distribution of health resources and the systemic barriers to addressing pressing health issues. However, possessing this knowledge isn't always enough to create significant change with daily practice demands.

That's where our interactive, online, 6-week program steps in. HEART! is created with the intent to offer support, essential skills, and a strategic framework that will help you create and lead your own community organizing and advocacy initiatives.

The bottom line: Our goal is to empower clinicians like you and encourage you to stand up and organize to transform healthcare.

The next cohort will start on October 20th

Application deadline: October 13th