Heartline: Changemaking in Healthcare

By Andrea Austin, MDSociety & Culture Medicine Health & Fitness Education Self-Improvement

Heartline: Changemaking in Healthcare episodes

September 15From Burnout to PACE: Redefining Success Without Losing Yourself
What if achieving your highest level didn’t require sacrificing your health, values, or sense of self?
Dr. Judy Wright shares how her experiences across clinical medicine, academia, managed care, and coaching reshaped her understanding of sustainable success and the importance of pausing long enough to recognize what is truly working.
Judy also explores how clinicians can become stronger change-makers by listening across disciplines, bringing the right people to the table, and addressing problems upstream. Her PACE framework (Pause, Audit, Calibrate, and Elevate) offers a practical approach to examining boundaries, redefining success, and building a career that supports both ambition and personal wellbeing.
Episode Highlights:
From One Doctor to a Difference-Maker: Discover how Judy’s patients literally followed her across New York, revealing the profound impact one physician can have.
Breaking the “Dark Side” Myth: Why clinicians need a voice inside managed care and payer organizations to influence healthcare decisions.
Everyone Belongs at the Table: How bringing physicians, nurses, social workers, nutritionists, and other professionals together can create lasting community change.
Burnout Can Follow You: Why changing jobs alone may not solve burnout, and what looking inward can reveal.
The PACE Method: Learn how to Pause, Audit, Calibrate, and Elevate your approach to success, boundaries, priorities, and capacity.
Turn Awareness Into Action: How simple audits, wearable data, calendars, and daily reflection can uncover patterns and guide meaningful changes.
Hope for Healthcare’s Future: Why the next generation of medical and nursing professionals gives Judy reason to remain optimistic about healthcare transformation.
About the Guest:
Dr. Judy Wright is a board-certified family medicine physician and sustainable success strategist who helps high-achieving professional women pursue ambitious goals without sacrificing themselves. A physician, coach, speaker, and healthcare leader, she has worked across clinical medicine, academia, corrections, and managed care and has been recognized nationally for her leadership and influence.
Connect With Judy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judywrightmd
Instagram: @judywrightmd.
Resources Mentioned
PACE Method: Dr. Judy Wright’s framework: Pause, Audit, Calibrate, Elevate.
Oura Ring: discussed as a tool for monitoring stress patterns and increasing self-awareness.
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff; and It’s All Small Stuff : recommended by Dr. Judy Wright for maintaining perspective and protecting your energy.
Top 3 Key Takeaways:
Pause Before You Push Forward: Sustainable success begins with creating space to interrupt autopilot. Pausing allows you to notice what you are feeling, examine what is happening, reconnect with your values, and determine whether your current definition of success still reflects what you genuinely want.
Audit What Is Really Working: Awareness makes change possible. Look for patterns in your stress, relationships, schedule, energy, and boundaries. Whether using a wearable or a simple calendar rating system, examining your experiences can help identify what needs to change and where your energy is going.
Build Success Around Your Capacity: Success should evolve as your circumstances and capacity change. Calibrating may mean changing priorities, delegating, adjusting your calendar, or setting stronger boundaries. By honoring where you are while intentionally building forward, you can pursue greater achievement without losing yourself in the process.

🩺 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.⁠⁠
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.
34 min
September 08Peak Performance in Medicine: Wearables, Recovery, Sleep & the Future of Healthcare
What if the same performance science used to support elite athletes, military teams, and other high-stakes professionals could help healthcare clinicians thrive?
Dr. Andrea Austin welcomes Joshua Blair, Head of Insights at Arena Labs, for a conversation about the intersection of performance science, neuroscience, wearable technology, and healthcare. Joshua explains how Arena Labs adapts tools from other high-stakes industries to help physicians, nurses, APPs, and other clinicians build greater physical, mental, and emotional capacity. They explore how wearables can provide useful insight into sleep, stress, recovery, and heart rate variability while emphasizing that data is most valuable when paired with context and coaching.
The conversation also moves beyond individual wellbeing to examine how aggregated insights can help healthcare organizations understand team stressors, leadership challenges, scheduling issues, and other systemic factors. Andrea and Joshua discuss why supporting individuals and changing broken systems are not competing ideas, but interconnected parts of creating healthier healthcare environments.

You’ll hear how they:
Understand what wearables can reveal about stress, recovery, sleep, and physiology
Use heart rate variability as a personalized window into nervous-system patterns
Turn wearable data into meaningful behavioral insights rather than simply reacting to scores
Use coaching to connect performance science and data to the realities of clinical life
Think about individual wellbeing and organizational change as interconnected
Use aggregated data to help leaders identify team-level stressors and opportunities
Embrace individualized approaches to scheduling, workload, recovery, and performance
Build recovery practices into life outside of work
Prioritize breathing, active recovery, and sleep as foundations of wellbeing
Create healthcare environments that help clinicians flourish rather than treating them like interchangeable widgets
About the Guest:
Joshua Blair is the Head of Insights at Arena Labs and a Johns Hopkins alum with a master's degree in science and bioengineering. He has pioneered predictive performance insights for hospital leaders and brings expertise to the intersection of performance and neuroscience. His background also includes inventing a non-invasive brain-computer device designed to monitor and augment deep sleep.
At Arena Labs, Joshua focuses on translating performance science, data, coaching, and insights from other high-stakes industries into practical approaches for healthcare professionals and organizations.
📍 Connect with Joshua:
Email: [email protected]
Arena Labs: arenalabs.co
LinkedIn: Joshua Blair
📚 Resources + Mentions
arenalabs.co
Wearable technology and heart rate variability
Stanford Healthcare Professional Fulfillment Model
WHOOP
BioStrap
JAMA research involving Arena Labs and clinicians
Just One Heart by Jonathan Fisher
🔑 Top 3 Key Takeaways
Data is most powerful when paired with context: Wearables can provide insight into sleep, stress, recovery, and heart rate variability, but a number alone does not tell the whole story. Clinicians need to understand what may be influencing their data and use those insights to identify patterns and make meaningful changes rather than simply reacting to a score.
Individual wellbeing and system change are connected: Supporting individual clinicians does not mean ignoring organizational problems. Healthcare systems are made up of individuals and teams, and better support can give people more capacity to participate in meaningful change. At the same time, aggregated insights can help leaders identify systemic stressors and make better decisions.
Recovery is part of peak performance: Joshua highlights three practical foundations for clinician wellbeing: breathing, active recovery, and sleep. Recovery does not simply mean doing nothing; it can involve meaningful activities outside work that reconnect people with who they are beyond their professional environment.

🩺 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.⁠⁠
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.
47 min
September 01Call In, Don’t Call Out: The Human Side of Sustainable Change
What does it really take to create change that lasts?
Dr. Andrea Austin welcomes Jennifer Brown for a powerful conversation about the human dimensions of change. Drawing from more than two decades of experience advising organizations on culture, talent, leadership, and transformation, Jennifer shares why successful change requires more than information, urgency, or advocacy. It requires curiosity, emotional support, trust, and the willingness to meet people where they are.
The conversation explores the challenges healthcare leaders face as they introduce new technologies such as AI-assisted documentation. Jennifer shares her personal changemaker story, from her early career as a performer and advocate to becoming an organizational change consultant. She reflects on her experience of being closeted as a performer, losing her singing voice, and ultimately discovering how her personal experiences with authenticity, safety, and transformation shaped the work she does today.
The conversation also examines the evolution and disruption of DEI, the difference between “calling out” and “calling in,” and how leaders can create psychological safety by making room for difficult conversations.
Finally, Jennifer introduces the BANI framework (brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and incomprehensible) and shares the powerful chrysalis metaphor from her book, The Shape of Change. Just as a caterpillar must surrender to transformation before becoming something new, leaders and organizations may need to let go of familiar identities, structures, and definitions of success in order to create what comes next.
You’ll hear how they:
Meet people where they are instead of force-feeding change

Identify the fears and concerns driving resistance to new technology

Balance inquiry and advocacy when leading transformation

Recognize the importance of emotional support alongside information

Use “calling in” as an alternative to public shaming and criticism

Create psychological safety that allows difficult conversations to strengthen relationships

Understand the human lessons behind the disruption of DEI

Navigate a BANI world that is brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and incomprehensible

Embrace surrender, uncertainty, and transformation through the chrysalis metaphor
About the Guest:
“Maybe the art of falling apart isn’t about failing or breaking down. Perhaps it’s about having the courage to let go of who we’ve been so we can become what’s needed next.” – Jennifer Brown
Jennifer Brown is a bestselling author, speaker, entrepreneur, and leadership thinker whose work explores how people, organizations, and institutions adapt in times of profound change.
For more than two decades, she has advised leaders at some of the world’s most influential organizations on culture, talent, and transformation. She is the author of five books, including her latest, The Shape of Change, and her work focuses on leadership, organizational resilience, workforce transformation, and the human dimensions of change in an era of accelerating disruption.
Jennifer is also the host of The Will to Change podcast, and serves as the founding luminary for Cocelle’s Luminary Exchange, a global community exploring the future of work, leadership, technology, and society.
📍 Connect with Jennifer
Website: jenniferbrownspeaks.com
Instagram: @jenniferbrownspeaks
LinkedIn: Jennifer Brown
Podcast: The Will to Change : Where Leadership Meets the Courage to Evolve
📚 Resources + Mentions
· The Shape of Change by Jennifer Brown
· How to Be an Inclusive Leader by Jennifer Brown

🔑 Top 3 Key Takeaways
Sustainable change starts with meeting people where they are: Change leaders need to balance inquiry and advocacy, understand what people care about, and identify the fears or concerns that may prevent them from embracing something new.

Calling in can create more powerful change than calling out: Constructive feedback, delivered with grace and respect, can preserve relationships, reduce shame, and give people an opportunity to understand their impact and grow.

Transformation requires surrender: Jennifer’s chrysalis metaphor reminds us that periods of uncertainty, grief, and apparent stillness can contain important unseen work. Letting go of what once was can create the space for something new to emerge.
🩺 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.⁠⁠
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.
51 min
August 25It’s Okay for People to Be Wrong About You: Authenticity as Changemaking
What happens when high-achieving women in medicine realize the greatest change starts inside?
Dr. Andrea Austin welcomes Dr. Saidie Rodriguez for a wide-ranging conversation on authenticity, agency, and the quiet power of being fully yourself. Sadie shares her own journey from disconnection and pain to self-trust and joyful expression, and the two physicians unpack how coaching tools, radical acceptance, and generative conflict can transform both individual lives and the systems we work in.
They discuss the limits of a healthcare culture built on conformity and “masculine” leadership traits, the rise of what Sadie calls “feminine intelligence” (curiosity, collaboration, presence, communication), and practical ways to stay true to yourself without becoming selfish. Listeners will leave with concrete practices for managing the inner critic, expanding emotional capacity, and realizing that simply being yourself is already a form of changemaking.
You’ll hear how they:
Reframe authenticity as a relational, generative force rather than a selfish act

Use self-trust, non-judgment, and “let people be wrong about you” as daily practices

Turn conflict into generative collaboration with colleagues and consultants

Recognize that the most powerful change is often internal and invisible

See how simply showing up as yourself becomes permission and hope for others
About the Guest:
“The greatest change can be internal, can be invisible, can be not measurable.” – Dr. Saidie Rodriguez
Dr.Saidie Rodriguez is a physician, speaker, and coach who helps high-achieving women move from performance to presence. She blends evidence-informed tools with the intuitive arts and supports accomplished women in cultivating self-trust, authentic expression, and a life that feels as meaningful on the inside as it looks on paper. She is also the host of the SoulShine podcast.
📍 Connect with Saidie
Website: https://www.soulshine.global
Free self-trust activation gift: https://www.soulshine.global/podcastgift
Podcast: SoulSHINE: The Art of Becoming
📚 Resources + Mentions
· 🔗 SoulShine Podcast Gift – Self-Trust Activation
🔑 Top 3 Key Takeaways
Authenticity is relational, not selfish. When you fully own yourself, you give others permission to do the same, and the space between you becomes more creative, compassionate, and generative.

The inner work is the real work. Agency, non-judgment, and the ability to let people be wrong about you free up enormous energy that can then be directed toward patients, teams, and systems.

You are already someone’s beacon. Simply being yourself; messy, sparkly, polarizing, or quiet changes the field around you more than any title or strategy ever could.
🩺 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.⁠⁠
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.
49 min
July 21The Leadership Blueprint for Women Physicians: Visibility, Sponsorship, and Impact
What does it take to break through leadership barriers in medicine without sacrificing your authenticity?
In this inspiring episode, Dr. Andrea Austin welcomes Dr. Shannon Udovic-Constant, as she shares her journey into executive leadership, the lessons she learned navigating spaces where women remain significantly underrepresented, and why visibility, not just hard work, is essential for career advancement.
Together, Andrea and Shannon unpack the realities women physicians continue to face, from being mistaken for non-physician staff to balancing invisible labor at home while pursuing leadership opportunities. Rather than accepting these challenges as personal failures, they encourage physicians to recognize the systemic barriers that exist and develop intentional strategies to overcome them.
Shannon introduces the concept of strategic visibility, explaining why saying "yes" to every opportunity isn't enough. She shares actionable advice on building relationships with decision-makers, leading high-impact initiatives, communicating accomplishments with confidence, and understanding the difference between mentorship and sponsorship. The conversation also explores psychological safety, creating healthy leadership cultures, and why diverse leadership ultimately leads to better healthcare decisions for patients.
Whether you're considering your first leadership role or looking to expand your influence within medicine, this episode offers practical tools, encouragement, and a powerful reminder that authentic leadership creates lasting change—for physicians, healthcare systems, and the patients they serve.
You'll Hear How They:
Discuss why women remain significantly underrepresented in executive healthcare leadership despite representing the majority of today's medical graduates.

Explain how strategic visibility helps physicians position themselves for leadership opportunities by intentionally building relationships with key decision-makers.

Share practical techniques for communicating accomplishments confidently while remaining authentic and collaborative.

Explore the critical difference between mentorship and sponsorship, and why sponsorship is often the missing ingredient in advancing women leaders.

Reveal leadership practices that build psychological safety, encourage healthy disagreement, and strengthen team performance.

Discuss why physician advocacy and participation in organized medicine are essential for creating meaningful healthcare reform and improving patient care.

Encourage physicians to embrace leadership without compromising their values, identity, or authenticity.
About the Guest
"You don't have to change who you are to become an effective leader, you simply need to become visible for the impact you're already creating." — Dr. Shannon Udovic-Constant
Dr. Shannon Udovic-Constant is a pediatrician, leadership coach, and advocate for women in medicine. As President of California's largest medical association, she's a trailblazer for women in leadership. Through Physician Women Rising, she empowers women physicians to pursue executive roles, building visibility, presence, and influence. Her PWR Leadership Method drives meaningful change in healthcare."
📍 Connect with Dr. Shannon Udovic-Constant
Website: drshannonudovicconstant.com
LinkedIn: Shannon Udovic-Constant
Substack: Physician Women Rising
🔗 Resources Mentioned
A Likable Badass by Alison Fragale

Make Trouble by Cecile Richards

"Stand on Your Square" leadership philosophy by Wendy Dean

Physician Women Rising Leadership Program

American Medical Association (AMA) leadership and physician advocacy
🔑 Top 3 Key Takeaways
Leadership Requires Visibility, Not Just Hard Work: Exceptional work alone rarely leads to executive leadership. Physicians who intentionally build relationships, lead high-impact initiatives, communicate their accomplishments, and position themselves in front of decision-makers are far more likely to influence change and advance their careers.

Sponsorship Opens Doors That Mentorship Cannot: Mentors offer valuable guidance, but sponsors actively advocate for you when leadership opportunities arise. Organizations that intentionally create sponsorship pathways can accelerate diverse leadership and ensure talented physicians have access to executive roles.

Better Representation Creates Better Healthcare: Leadership teams that reflect diverse experiences make stronger decisions for patients, physicians, and healthcare systems. Increasing representation isn't simply about equity, it's about improving outcomes, strengthening organizations, and building a healthcare system that better serves everyone.
🩺 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.⁠⁠
Heart of Medicine in Uluru, Australia
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.
42 min
July 14Laugh Your Way Out of Burnout: Dr. Rashmi Schramm’s Radical Path to Physician Wellness
What happens when a dedicated family physician hits burnout after 22 years in practice?
Dr. Rashmi Schramm opens up about her path from residency activism (securing a 15% raise for her program) through deep burnout, physical symptoms, and eventual transition to coaching, retreats, and teaching meditation and laughter yoga. The conversation covers arrival fallacy, the power of mindfulness practices rooted in her Indian heritage and Ayurveda, laughter yoga’s origins, Duke’s integrative health coaching program, and creating safe spaces for women physicians through retreats.
You’ll hear how they:
Recognize and address burnout through self-compassion, meditation, and somatic practices

Use laughter yoga and breathwork as accessible tools for physiological shifts

Bridge clinical medicine with coaching and integrative approaches

Build community and intuition to sustain change-making work in healthcare
About the Guest
“Remember who you are beneath the roles.” – Dr. Rashmi Schramm
Dr. Rashmi Schramm is a board-certified family medicine physician with 22 years of clinical experience. She is a certified coach, meditation teacher, laughter yoga instructor, and host of the Inner Peace and Power podcast. Passionate about helping high-achieving women reclaim energy and purpose, she leads retreats and coaching programs focused on mindfulness, intuition, and wholehearted living.
📍 Connect with Rashmi
Website: rashmischramm.com
Podcast: Inner Peace and Power
LinkedIn: Rashmi Schramm, MD
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Inner Peace and Power Podcast: Hosted by Dr. Rashmi Schramm
Laughter Yoga – Founded by Dr. Madan Kataria
Polishing the Mirror by Ram Dass
🔑 Top 3 Key Takeaways
Build a Daily Witness Practice: Start and end your day with movement + meditation (even 10 minutes). When stress hits, pause, place your hand on your heart, and ask: “What am I witnessing right now?” This creates space between stimulus and reaction, reduces emotional reactivity, and reconnects you with intuition—essential for sustainable change-making in medicine.

Use Laughter Yoga for Quick Physiological Reset: Try 5 minutes of laughter yoga daily: fake laugh with breathwork and light movement until it becomes real. It lowers stress hormones, opens your diaphragm, and shifts your nervous system. Great for busy clinicians—do it solo or with your team during a quick huddle. Childlike curiosity is the only requirement.

Invest in Self-Compassion Training: Treat self-compassion as a core clinical skill. If medical education included a 6-week self-compassion course, it would dramatically reduce burnout. Start small: notice your inner critic during a tough shift and respond with the same kindness you’d offer a patient or colleague. Small acts compound into resilience.
🩺 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.⁠⁠
Heart of Medicine in Uluru, Australia
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.
38 min
July 07What Healthcare Leaders Miss About Culture, Complexity, and Change | John D'Alesandro
What happens when we stop treating hospitals like factories and start recognizing them as complex systems filled with uncertainty, competing priorities, and deeply human experiences?
In this thought-provoking episode, Dr. Andrea Austin sits down with John D'Alesandro to discuss the realities of improving healthcare from an operational perspective. Drawing from decades of experience in manufacturing and healthcare systems, John shares why traditional dashboards often fail to predict problems, how organizations can learn to identify early warning signals, and why building a culture of action matters more than simply completing improvement projects.
Together, they tackle some of healthcare's most pressing issues, including emergency department boarding, leadership versus management, technology adoption, and the disconnect between policy-level solutions and frontline realities. John also offers a powerful perspective as both an operations expert and a patient navigating a serious neurological condition, reminding listeners that healthcare ultimately succeeds or fails through the experiences of those who depend on it.
This conversation invites listeners to think differently about accountability, agency, and the small cultural shifts that can make meaningful change possible.
They discussed:
Why hospitals function more like complex adaptive systems than factories

The limitations of traditional dashboards and retrospective metrics

Identifying early warning signals before crises develop

Creating cultures that empower frontline staff to act

Leadership versus management in healthcare settings

The ongoing emergency department boarding crisis and throughput challenges

Why local solutions often outperform one-size-fits-all mandates

Lessons learned from navigating healthcare as a patient

Building trust, agency, and accountability within healthcare teams

How small actions shape organizational culture over time
🩺 About the Guest
John D'Alesandro is a healthcare operations consultant, engineer, speaker, and thought leader who helps hospitals and health systems improve patient flow, operational performance, and organizational culture. Drawing on experience in manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare transformation, he works with frontline teams to identify emerging challenges, implement practical solutions, and foster cultures that proactively address problems before they escalate.
John is also an advocate for understanding healthcare through both operational and patient perspectives, informed by his own experiences navigating a complex neurological condition.
LinkedIn: John D'Alesandro
🔗 Resources Mentioned
John D'Alesandro

If I Betray These Words by Dr. Wendy Dean
🔑 Top 3 Key Takeaways
Hospitals are complex systems, not factories: Healthcare cannot be optimized solely through standardization and retrospective metrics. Understanding local conditions and frontline realities is essential for meaningful improvement.

Culture determines whether change lasts: Improvement efforts succeed when leaders create environments where staff feel safe identifying problems, speaking up, and taking action before crises occur.

Patients experience the entire journey, not isolated moments: Excellent clinical care can be overshadowed by fragmented transitions, delays, and poor coordination. Designing systems around the patient experience remains one of healthcare's greatest opportunities.
🩺 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.⁠⁠
Heart of Medicine in Uluru, Australia
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.
42 min
June 30Medicine Got Harder: Here’s How to Own Your Career and Stay Above the Line | Dr. Rob Orman (Part 2)
In Part 2 of a two-part episode, Dr. Rob Orman joins Dr. Andrea Austin to discuss the profound changes in emergency medicine, the importance of intentional joy, and powerful coaching frameworks that help physicians navigate reactivity and complexity. Rob shares a powerful passage from his book Supernormal about the Drama Triangle, discusses career ownership versus renting, and offers insights on redesigning medical education with mindfulness and awareness at the center.
This episode is filled with immediately applicable tools for clinicians, leaders, and anyone seeking to create space in high-stakes moments.
They discussed:
How emergency medicine has changed profoundly since COVID

Finding and creating joy in medicine through intentional practices

Owning vs. renting your career

The Drama Triangle and staying “above the line”

Cognitive empathy and declining invitations to drama

Powerful reset phrases: “Good.” and “I wish it wasn’t this way, but it is this way.”

Redesigning medical education with meditation and listening skills

Coaching tools that translate from one-on-one sessions to clinical practice
🩺 About the Guest
Dr. Rob Orman is a physician coach, author, and former emergency physician with two decades of clinical experience. He is the author of Supranormal: A Field Guide for the Impossible Job, which helps physicians recover from burnout, navigate conflict, and build sustainable careers. He hosts the top-ranked podcast Stimulus, co-founded Guidewire Coaching, and previously hosted Essentials of Emergency Medicine. Rob also served as technical advisor on the Emmy-winning HBO series The Pit.
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Supranormal: A Field Guide for the Impossible Job by Rob Orman

Stimulus Podcast

Guidewire Coaching

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
🔑 Top 3 Key Takeaways:
Own your career, don’t rent it: Treat your professional life with the care and investment you’d give something you truly own. This mindset shift leads to greater fulfillment and intentional growth.

Step outside the Drama Triangle: Awareness of victim, villain, and hero roles allows you to respond with discernment and compassion instead of reactivity, creating better outcomes for patients, teams, and yourself.

Build awareness and the pause: Whether through meditation, simple phrases, or reflective practices, creating space between stimulus and response is one of the most powerful skills a physician can develop.
🩺 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.⁠⁠
Heart of Medicine in Uluru, Australia
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.
31 min
June 23Creating Space Between Stimulus and Response: How Physicians Can Change Their Impact | Dr. Rob Orman
What happens when a lifelong emergency physician steps back from clinical practice and dedicates himself to helping other doctors navigate the impossible job of medicine?
In Part 1 of a two-part episode, Dr. Rob Orman joins Dr. Andrea Austin to share his remarkable path, from documenting mass casualty events to becoming a technical advisor for the hit HBO series The Pit, and ultimately building a coaching practice that helps physicians create meaningful change in their behavior and careers.
Together they discuss the importance of awareness, the space between stimulus and response, cognitive empathy, and why art and storytelling may be powerful vehicles for transforming healthcare. Rob also opens up about his own career struggles and the deep fulfillment he finds in one-on-one behavioral coaching.
They discussed:
How documenting mass casualty events led to advising on The Pit

The career shift from full-time clinician and educator to physician coach

Why “not everyone thinks like you do”, and the power of cognitive empathy

Building awareness and creating the pause between stimulus and response

Behavioral coaching for physicians on performance plans or struggling with reactivity

The role of storytelling and art in driving healthcare change

Lessons from burnout, skill decay, and career transitions
🩺 About the Guest
Dr. Rob Orman is a physician coach, author, and former emergency physician with two decades of clinical experience. He is the author of Supernormal: A Field Guide for the Impossible Job, which helps physicians recover from burnout, navigate conflict, and build sustainable careers. He hosts the top-ranked podcast Stimulus, co-founded Guidewire Coaching, and previously hosted Essentials of Emergency Medicine. Rob also served as technical advisor on the Emmy-winning HBO series The Pit.
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Supranormal: A Field Guide for the Impossible Job by Rob Orman

Stimulus Podcast

Guidewire Coaching

The Pit (HBO series)
🔑 Top 3 Key Takeaways:
Awareness creates the pause: Real change begins with noticing your patterns and reactions in the moment. Building this awareness is the foundation of behavioral coaching and personal growth.

Cognitive empathy changes everything: Not everyone thinks or processes the world the way you do. Learning to truly understand another person’s perspective reduces conflict and improves leadership and patient care.

Storytelling and art can transform healthcare: Sharing authentic medical stories through podcasts, books, television, and other media has the power to build public understanding and drive systemic change.
🩺 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.⁠⁠
Heart of Medicine in Uluru, Australia
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.
38 min
June 16The Missing Link in Healthcare: Connecting Patients, Clinicians, and AI with Dale Ellicott
Healthcare is filled with great ideas, promising technologies, and passionate clinicians, but why do so many innovation efforts fail?
In this episode, Dale Ellicott joins Dr. Andrea Austin to explore what it really takes to create sustainable change in healthcare. From his early experiences introducing groundbreaking rehabilitation technologies to his current work at Rely Health, Dale shares lessons about resistance to change, organizational alignment, and the importance of putting patients first.
Together, they discuss the realities of value-based care, the challenges clinicians face when navigating fragmented healthcare systems, and the growing role of AI in supporting, not replacing human connection. Dale explains how Rely Health combines agentic AI with human care navigators to help patients schedule appointments, access transportation, connect with primary care, and overcome barriers that often lead to poor outcomes and avoidable readmissions.
The conversation offers practical guidance for clinicians, leaders, and innovators who want to move beyond pilot programs and build solutions that truly improve healthcare delivery.
They discussed:
How a values-based decision shaped Dale's career in healthcare innovation

Why healthcare organizations struggle to adopt new technology

The dangers of "pilotitis" and failed innovation projects

How AI-powered care navigation improves patient follow-up

Lessons for clinicians who want to become successful change-makers
🩺 About the Guest
Dale Ellicott has built a career at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and patient-centered innovation. Beginning in athletic training before moving into rehabilitation, medical devices, telehealth, and digital health, he now works with Rely Health to help health systems connect patients to the right care at the right time through a combination of AI-powered solutions and human support.
Website: relyhealth.care
LinkedIn: Dale Ellicott
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Rely Health – https://relyhealth.care

It Takes 5 to Tango by Verena Volek
🔑 Top 3 Key Takeaways:
Healthcare innovation succeeds when relationships come first: The best ideas often fail because organizations focus on technology before alignment. Successful change requires clinicians, operational leaders, financial decision-makers, and frontline staff working together from the beginning.

AI should reduce burden, not replace human connection: Technology is most effective when it removes administrative tasks that prevent clinicians from focusing on patients. By combining AI with human oversight, organizations can improve efficiency while preserving empathy, trust, and personalized support. The goal isn't to replace people, it's to free them to do what humans do best.

Better care navigation improves outcomes for everyone: Many patients struggle not because they lack motivation, but because healthcare systems are difficult to navigate. Helping patients schedule appointments, arrange transportation, understand insurance, and connect with primary care can reduce readmissions, improve health outcomes, lower costs, and ease the moral burden clinicians often feel when patients fall through the cracks.
🩺 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.⁠⁠
Heart of Medicine in Uluru, Australia
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.
46 min

About Heartline: Changemaking in Healthcare

From the publisher's feed

Welcome to "Heartline," a podcast dedicated to exploring the inspiring journeys and impactful work of healthcare changemakers leading the charge in transforming healthcare. Despite the United States spending more on healthcare than any other developed nation, key quality outcomes like life expectancy and maternal mortality lag behind. With over half of American physicians experiencing burnout, the challenges within the system are clear.

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About Heartline: Changemaking in Healthcare