Dr. Robert C. Smith, University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Psychiatry at Michigan State University and author of Has Medicine Lost Its Mind? Why Our Mental Health System is Failing Us and What Should Be Done to Cure It, has spent a lifetime helping physicians reclaim the human side of medicine. Bob has seen, from inside the exam room, how fragmented systems and over-documentation pull doctors away from their calling. His mission is to reconnect medicine to its original purpose: to listen, heal, and serve.

The Next Steps Forward audience will relate to his clear, hopeful message about leadership and compassion in a system that often feels broken, including:

• How restoring empathy and communication can transform care

• What patients wish doctors knew…and vice versa

• Why healing the healers is key to fixing medicine

• The future of mental health integration in primary care

Dr. Smith brings both credibility and heart. His insights help anyone in a service or leadership role remember why they started.

About Dr. Robert C. Smith: Robert C. Smith, MD, MACP, is a university distinguished professor and a professor of medicine and psychiatry emeritus at Michigan State University, East Lansing. With many publications, awards, and strong grant support, he has been involved in teaching and research in patient-centered communication and primary care mental health since 1985. He and his colleagues defined the first evidence-based patient-centered interview, now published in a popular interviewing textbook, Smith's Patient-Centered Interviewing: An Evidence-Based Method (4th ed., 2018). It is used in medical, nursing, and other health care schools in the United States and abroad for teaching interviewing and the doctor-patient relationship. Dr. Smith's group also identified the first evidence-based method, the mental health care model, to guide primary care clinicians in managing mental health and substance-use problems. Essentials of Psychiatry in Primary Care: Behavioral Health in the Medical Setting (2019) resulted and is widely used to teach primary care mental health.