- Building Trust

Bridging the Gap Between Medicine and Public Health

Founded in 2025, the National Public Health Coalition is working to help the public and policymakers better understand the essential role of public health.

This conversation explores why clear, ...digestible messaging – especially for the “moveable middle” – is necessary now more than ever, and what it takes to break down silos between medicine and public health. Speakers discuss practical strategies to more effectively engage patients and communities, how to translate complex health information into meaningful messages that resonate, and the importance of building trust and improving care during a time of growing uncertainty in health care.  

Speakers:
Abby Tighe, MPH, founder and Executive Director of the National Public Health Coalition

Laura Sessums, JD, MD, Chief Medical Officer of the American Board of Internal Medicine

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Bridging the Gap Between Medicine and Public Health

Trusted Partnerships: How Primary Care Can Navigate Mistrust in Medicine

From Principles to Practice: Advancing Trustworthiness in Health Care

Information Sick: Trust, Medicine, and Media

As the information environment becomes increasingly fragmented and polarized, misinformation is reshaping how the public understands health, medicine, and science. In this recorded conversation, speakers discuss how this “information sickness” ...— amplified by social media and limited accountability in digital spaces — affects patients, clinicians, and health care institutions alike. Speakers explore what it means to practice medicine in a climate of uncertainty and eroding trust, and emphasize the shared responsibility for addressing health misinformation. Reflections include how professionalism can help clinicians navigate challenging conversations, engage patients with humility and clarity, and strengthen trust as a foundation for better care.

SPEAKERS:
Joanne Kenen is a nationally recognized health journalist and Journalist in Residence at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who writes for Politico and frequently speaks on media, politics, and public health.

Joshua Sharfstein, MD is Vice Dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, former Maryland Health Secretary and FDA Deputy Commissioner, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Ali Khan, MD, MPP, FACP (Moderator) is Chief Medical Officer for Medicare at Aetna/CVS Health, a practicing internist, and a health care leader in value-based care and clinical strategy.

00:00 – Why “information sickness” is more than just misinformation.
02:30 – How health misinformation shows up in the exam room.
03:10 – How the collapse of local journalism and civic trust changed the information ecosystem.
05:25 – Why misinformation isn’t about intelligence — it’s about trust and information sources.
10:45 – What “Information Sickness” really means
15:20 – Why patients trust clinicians — but not institutions.
20:25 – What the data tells us about persuasion limits — and where to focus instead.
24:50 – The psychology of identity, belief, and resistance.
28:00 – How dismissiveness erodes credibility.
30:30 – What modern professionalism requires from clinicians.
35:40 – Why proactive communication is more effective than reactive correction.
41:15 – The role of Medical Professionalism
47:00 – Working with trusted community leaders and networks.
52:00 – How digital platforms reshape what we see — and what we believe.
56:10 – Rebuilding Trust in a Polarized Environment
59:00 – Final Reflections & Call to Action

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Who needs Superman anymore?

Managing Uncertainty: A Path to Better Patient Care

Building Organizational Trust in Health Care

Over the past 50 years, trust in the health care sector has measurably declined, particularly in communities of color. But trust between patients and clinicians, between clinicians and the health ...care organizations where they work, and between communities and their health care organizations is essential for optimal health.

This conversation explores a blueprint for how health care organizations can build and strengthen trust, including acknowledging historical harms.

Speakers:
• Kedar Mate, MD, is President and Chief Executive Officer at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), President of the IHI Lucian Leape Institute, and a member of the faculty at Weill Cornell Medical College. His scholarly work has focused on health system design, health care quality, strategies for achieving large-scale change, and approaches to improving value. Previously Dr. Mate worked at Partners In Health, the World Health Organization, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and served as IHI’s Chief Innovation and Education Officer. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and white papers and has received multiple honors, including serving as a Soros Fellow, Fulbright Specialist, Zetema Panelist, and an Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellow. Dr. Mate graduated from Brown University with a degree in American History and from Harvard Medical School with a medical degree.
• Dawn Johnson, MSN, RN is CEO and founder of DHJ Services. She has more than 25 years of experience in healthcare with a special focus on vulnerable populations, health policy and public-private partnerships. Johnson’s professional experience includes more than ten years of management consulting with health systems, payers, providers and government agencies on managing care for populations, developing and implementing performance improvement strategies, government relations, and interpreting health policy for market viability, operations and business development. Her background and experience in nursing allows her to apply an understanding that the health and well-being of individuals and populations are deeply rooted in their exposure to and experience in their community and the condition of their environment. Johnson’s fourteen-year federal career spans agencies that includes the Veterans Affairs and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Moderator:
Daniel Wolfson, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, ABIM Foundation

(2023-06-14)Show More

Trauma and Healing in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Navigating Uncertainty: Preparing Clinicians to Lead With Trust, Transparency, & Respect

How can clinicians communicate uncertainty while building trust and supporting patient autonomy?

Uncertainty is a constant in health care — but many clinicians are trained to value certainty above all else. ...In this conversation, experts explore how embracing ambiguity can actually strengthen clinician-patient relationships and foster trust in an era of rapid change and growing skepticism toward the medical system.

Featuring Dimitrios Papanagnou, MD, EdD, MPH (Thomas Jefferson University), Lekshmi Santhosh, MD, MAEd (University of California-San Francisco), and moderated by Susan Edgman-Levitan, PA (John D. Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital), this discussion examines:

How to communicate clinical uncertainty with transparency and respect.
Ways to present clinical guidelines as evidence-based recommendations rather than rigid rules.
Strategies to support patient autonomy and collaboration.
The importance of preparing future clinicians to engage with uncertainty confidently and compassionately.
Watch to gain practical insights into building trust through openness, fostering shared decision-making, and redefining professionalism for modern health care.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

Addressing diagnostic uncertainty and excellence in emergency care — from multicountry policy analysis to communication practice in Australian emergency departments: a multimethod study protocol, published in BMJ Open: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/14/9/e085335

Jefferson Center for Connected Care, an initiative advancing team-based, technology-enabled approaches to improve patient outcomes: https://research.jefferson.edu/connected-care-center.html

VitalTalk, a nonprofit that equips clinicians with communication skills to navigate serious illness conversations: https://vitaltalk.org

ICU-Pause, an ATS Ed+ educational resource designed to promote reflection and communication in intensive care settings: https://atsedplus.thoracic.org/icu-pause/group/icu-pause.

(2025-05-06)

00:00 – Introduction: Why uncertainty matters in healthcare
00:56 – Opening question: When uncertainty came to life
01:47 – Dmitri: Residents discharging without a diagnosis
03:00 – Defining “diagnostic uncertainty” and the training gap
04:07 – Lakshmi: The myth of House MD and diagnosis as a journey
05:44 – Navigating uncertainty as patients and family members
07:06 – Communicating uncertainty with transparency
10:19 – How transparency builds trust with patients
12:07 – Real-world examples of trust and uncertainty
15:20 – Team alignment and consistent communication
17:52 – Teaching students to manage uncertainty
22:37 – Culture change and psychological safety in medicine
23:07 – Introducing the ABIM Foundation–supported module
25:20 – Inside the module: practical tools and examples
26:13 – The ICU Pause and uncertainty communication checklist
28:40 – Language and linguistics of uncertainty
29:43 – Trauma-informed care and rebuilding trust
32:50 – Trauma-informed medical education
33:18 – Communicating uncertainty during hospital discharge
37:39 – Respect, team culture, and building trust across care
41:16 – Embedding uncertainty as a core competency
43:19 – Practical strategies clinicians can use right away
47:37 – Closing reflections
52:12 – Moderator wrap-up and key takeaways

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Navigating Financial and Corporate Influences on Medical Professionalism

Across the U.S., both patients and clinicians are feeling the effects of a changing health care landscape. Physicians report increasing burnout and loss of autonomy, while patients face rising costs, ...narrower networks, and more fragmented care. Many of these challenges point to a larger trend: the corporatization of health care. 

In this conversation, health law and policy expert Erin Fuse Brown, JD, MPH, and Fred Cerise, MD, MPH, explored how corporate ownership, market consolidation, and financial priorities were shaping the practice of medicine. They discussed the implications for medical professionalism, trust in the physician–patient relationship, and the overall mission of health care. Participants gained insight into how corporatization was influencing care delivery and what practical steps clinicians, institutions, and policymakers could take to realign health care with its core mission: serving patients.

Speaker: Erin Fuse Brown is a Professor of Health Services, Policy & Management at Brown University School of Public Health, the director of the Health Policy & Law Lab, and a faculty member of the Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research. She specializes in health law and policy, and her research focuses on health care finance, consolidation, corporatization, competition, financialization, and private equity investment. Professor Fuse Brown’s work has influenced health policy at the state and national levels.

Moderator: Fred Cerise has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Parkland Health since 2014. Parkland is the public health care system for Dallas County where his focus is on population health and delivery system improvements for underserved populations. His previous roles include the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals and the Vice President for Health Affairs and Medical Education of the Louisiana State University System.

(2025-09-29)

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What does it take to measure trust in health care?

What to Watch in 2025: Navigating Sources of News and Information

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