—Systemic change begins with personal change—
Ashish K. Jha, M.D., MPH, is the Dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, formerly Professor of Global Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. He is a practicing General Internist and also Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
On Tuesday he testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He has emerged as a leading voice of reason and expertise, frequently called upon to clarify complicated issues in CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and The Washington Post and more. He has criticized the federal government’s response.
Dr. Jha received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and then trained in Internal Medicine at the University of California in San Francisco. He completed his General Medicine fellowship at Brigham & Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School and received his M.P.H. from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
His research endeavors focus on improving the quality and costs of healthcare systems with a specialized focus on the impact of policies. Dr. Jha has published over two hundred various papers in prestigious journals and heads a personal blog which focuses on using statistical data research to improve health quality. Dr. Jha is a member of the Institute of Medicine at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
From a leadership standpoint, acting on sustainability and the pandemic overlap. You probably see Ashish's name everywhere too. He's in the thick of it at the highest national level. He shares an inside view of the political happenings on responding to the pandemic. He also shares the emotional experience---the frustration at seeing people dying unnecessarily. I think you can tell that despite the numbers, he cares. You may hear me realized I spoke too glibly in stating the number of American depths. Most of our conversation covered the leadership vacuum responding to the pandemic as well as the environment in general. I believe you'll hear we're moving toward talking leadership strategy, the emotional challenge of leadership, and finding what works besides management. We cover Avoiding political polarization and engaging leadership from other areas than politics seem challenging. What opportunities exist for voices to get out there, either on the pandemic or the environment? How have we abdicated or lost our alternatives to lead to Washington DC or state or local government? I don't just mean exercising authority. Leadership doesn't require authority. We can lead in other ways than political representation. Ashish talked about debate. I've come to equate debate with provoking argument, as I alluded to. Instead, what stories can we tell? What images can we evoke? Is there a way to reach people to hear views they aren't in a way they'll appreciate after? This is the challenge. I focus on it in the context of sustainability. It applies equally in the pandemic response.
If you've followed sensible, expert advice on the pandemic, you've probably read or seen Ashish Jha in the New York Times, The Atlantic, CNN, Washington Post, and everywhere. On Tuesday he testified to the US Senate. He's Harvard's Global Health Institute's Director. Over 200,000 people have taken his online Harvard courses, which you can for free. Over 80,000 took Ebola, Preventing the Next Pandemic and over 120,000 took Improving Global Health: Focusing on Quality and Safety. As it turns out, we were college teammates on the ultimate frisbee team. I'll link to a few top articles by him. With so many interfaces between the pandemic and us---health, government, research, policy, etc---you can read a lot of his views and experiences from different sources. I wanted to bring the personal side of leading on the front lines and top levels of a pandemic---how do doctors and public health experts feel about people not following advice, facing triage decisions, how to be heard, and what affects a doctor personally. We talk about leadership, the intersection between the pandemic and the environment, which overlaps with his directorship and courses, and more. By the way, he created his Ebola course five years before this pandemic and predicted much of it, as did many. If predicting what's happened so far isn't enough reason to follow his advice, I don't know what is. Let's wear those masks