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What does character have to do with leadership in medicine—and why are competencies alone no longer enough?

Dr. Jacqueline Torti, assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at Western University, joins Corey for a grounded conversation on character-based leadership in health professions education. She explores how character shows up in small, often unseen moments that shape trust, teamwork, and patient care.

A central focus of the episode is Jacqueline’s work leading a year-long character-based leadership course for medical residents—later expanded to early-career physicians due to overwhelming demand. She shares why residents were craving space, psychological safety, and community, how the course created meaningful connection in fast-paced clinical environments, and what surprised her most when studying its impact. 

🧠 What you’ll hear:
 🔥 Why character elevates clinical competence rather than competing with it
 🏥 How a year-long character-based leadership course created connection, reflection, and demand across medical training
 🤝 What research revealed about community and belonging as key outcomes of character development
 ⚖️ How Jacqueline responds to skepticism and pushback around character in medicine
 ❤️ Personal reflections on parenting, habituation, and sustaining character across contexts

Resources
• Sultan et al. (2019). Leadership development in postgraduate medical education: a systematic review of the literature. Academic Medicine, 94(3), 440-449. (https://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/abstract/2019/03000/leadership_development_in_postgraduate_medical.37.aspx)

•  Torti et al. (2022). Perspectives on physician leadership: the role of character‐based leadership in medicine. Medical Education, 56(12), 1184-1193. (https://asmepublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/medu.14875)

•  Leader Character Framework with Culture, Virtues, and Vices (https://virtuositycharacter.ca/organization/storage_production_6e293

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Host, Dr Corey Crossan (https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreycrossan/), is a research and teaching fellow at The Oxford Character Project where she develops and facilitates character development programs for students, industry, and university partners. Corey’s love for elite performance developed as she competed in top-level athletics for most of her life, highlighted by competing as a NCAA Division 1 athlete. Corey translated her understanding of elite performance into a passion for helping individuals and organizations develop sustained excellence. She is also the co-founder of Virtuosity Character, a mobile software application created to support the daily, deliberate practice of character-based leadership development.