Civil Discourse & Team Power: Transforming Healthcare from the Inside Out | Jessica Bunin
Episode Description
What does it take to drive meaningful change in healthcare when systems feel broken and institutional betrayal runs deep?
Dr. Jessica Bunin, a retired Army Colonel with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, joins Dr. Andrea Austin to discuss her remarkable journey from psychiatrist to critical care physician and senior academic leader. Through compelling stories; including dramatically reducing ICU central line infections by empowering unexpected team members, Jessica reveals how shifting from “extreme ownership” to true team-building, practicing moral courage, and mastering civil discourse can rebuild trust and create healthier healthcare cultures.
The conversation explores self-awareness as the foundation of effective leadership, the CLEAR framework for civil discourse, navigating institutional betrayal, and why leadership development must become central to medical education.
You’ll hear how they:
- Address institutional betrayal and moral injury by focusing on micro-cultures and small-team empowerment
- Build high-impact teams by including unexpected voices and shifting from doing things to people to doing things with them
- Practice moral courage in everyday healthcare settings, from challenging hierarchy to protecting patient safety
- Use the CLEAR framework (Create safety, Listen actively, Establish common ground, Adjust thinking, Respond skillfully) for productive conversations across difference
- Develop self-aware leaders who build trust and drive system-level transformation
About the Guests
“Civil discourse is our way forward.” – Dr. Jessica Bunin
Dr. Jessica Bunin is a retired Army Colonel, critical care physician, and former psychiatrist with 23 years of service including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. She has held numerous leadership roles in academic medicine including critical care program director, assistant dean of faculty development, associate dean of DEI and community, and professor of medicine and health professions education. She is the co-founder and Chief Architect of All Levels Leadership, an International Coaching Federation certified executive leadership coach, and the author of the upcoming book From the Inside Out: How Self-Aware Leaders Build Trust and Transform Healthcare.
📍 Connect with Jessica
Website: www.allevelsleadership.com
Email: jess@jessbuninmd.com
LinkedIn: Jessica Bunin
Instagram: @jess_bunin_all
📚 Resources + Mentions
- The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown
- Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
- Simon Sinek leadership principles
- Ira Chaleff – Courageous Followership
- Rushworth Kidder – Moral Courage framework
- From the Inside Out: How Self-Aware Leaders Build Trust and Transform Healthcare by Jessica Bunin (coming Fall 2026)
🔑 Top 3 Key Takeaways
- Broaden your team: The most valuable solutions often come from unexpected people. Include all stakeholders who touch a process, especially those who are rarely asked.
- Self-awareness is the foundation: Great leadership starts with deep inner work; reflection, values clarity, bias awareness, and self-compassion, before trying to change systems.
- Master civil discourse: Use the CLEAR framework to have honest, respectful conversations across difference. Legitimize other perspectives without needing to agree, and respond with skill instead of defensiveness.
🩺 About the Host:
Dr. Andrea Austin is a board-certified emergency physician, educator, and passionate advocate for system-level change in healthcare. As the creator and host of Heartline: Changemaking in Healthcare, Dr. Austin brings curiosity, compassion, and bold honesty to conversations with leaders who are challenging the norms and reshaping medicine from the inside out.
With decades of experience in high-pressure clinical environments, Andrea has seen firsthand the cracks in the system—and the people working to repair them. Whether she’s mentoring residents, speaking on national stages, or recording with a fellow disruptor, she centers one theme: change doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens heart to heart.
💫 About the Show:
Heartline: Changemaking in Healthcare isn’t just a podcast—it’s a pulse check on what’s possible.
Hosted by emergency physician and educator Dr. Andrea Austin, Heartline features conversations with healthcare leaders, innovators, and quiet disruptors who are challenging the way things have always been done.
Each episode explores real stories of change—from redefining leadership and communication, to reimagining systems built on burnout and hierarchy. This is a space for truth-telling, for asking better questions, and for reconnecting with the reason we all got into medicine in the first place: to make it better.
This isn’t about perfection. It’s about progress—with heart.
Follow Your Heartline and transform healthcare today!
🎓 Upcoming Events & Opportunities
- 🔥 Recalibrate: Group Coaching for Physicians
Starting 2026, I’ll be co-leading Recalibrate with psychologist and coach Sharee Johnson. This 6-month group coaching program supports physicians in rediscovering mindfulness, meaning, and wholehearted practice. I'm an alum myself—this program transformed my career. Learn more and enroll here, and please share with colleagues who may benefit.
o Join us for this incredible one of a one-of-a-kind event in the heart of Australia at one of our most spectacular locations—Voyagers Resort in Central Australia in 2026.
o Learn from some of the world's medical leaders in compassionate care, and how heart-centered healthcare can empower and heal healthcare workers and their patients.
o For: Doctors, Nurses, Allied Health Clinicians, Healthcare Leaders,
Coaches and Supervisors of Medics, Patient Advocates and all healthcare workers.
o When: 29-31 July 2026
Where: Voyages Ayers Rock Resort, Central Australia
- Women in Medicine Summit | Chicago, Sept 24-26, 2026
—-------------------------------
🎧 Thanks for tuning into Heartline: Changemaking in Healthcare!
🌟 Learn more and book a free discovery call today at andreaaustinmd.com/coaching.
Stay connected and keep making a difference:
✅ Subscribe to the Heartline newsletter for insights into reclaiming your well-being as a healthcare professional, improving teams around you, and transforming the system.
📱 Follow us on social: Instagram, LinkedIn & YouTube
📚Discover Dr. Austin’s book Revitalized: A Guidebook to Following Your Healing Heartline.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Listen On
