From Healing to Organizing

Welcome back, dear colleague!

In the first episode of a new podcast miniseries from the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and People Power Health, Drs. Lisa Patel, Pedja Stojicic, and Gaurab Basu talk about how health professionals are organizing for change, the power of building connections, and what gives them hope. Check out the Healthy Climate America podcast and other amazing episodes here.

Listen now, and stay tuned: Dr. Pedja Stojicic will host the next two episodes.

Clinicians diagnose and treat; organizers mobilize and strategize. This episode makes the case for adding organizing to the healer’s toolkit, so health professionals can tackle the upstream drivers of illness (policy, power, place) without leaving medicine behind.

The core practice of community organizing starts with seeing one another’s humanity and making space for story, phones down, presence up. From there, we build strategy, leadership teams, and action. Clinicians don’t need a new profession; they need a new skillset to do their healing work collectively as well as individually.

Why this episode matters

• Health + organizing = results. You can keep caring for patients and still drive change.

• Start with people. Story and relationships make action possible.

• Local wins add up. Hospital policies, professional societies, community energy projects.

• Hope is a practice. We already have many solutions; what we need is connection and momentum.

What you’ll hear

• How clinicians add organizing skills to their “healer’s toolkit”

• Simple steps to move from concern to action with colleagues

• Ways to avoid overwhelm and pick practical, local levers

• What keeps leaders going in hard moments and where they find hope