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ISSUE NO. 05 · AUGUST 2026 |
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| The past two weeks also brought three new friendships that I am super excited about because each one started with someone showing up fully. Deb Eckerling, through Innovation Women. Laurie Baedke, through the Growth Edge Leadership podcast. And Natalie Benamou, through Women Leaders on the Move, where our conversation is now live. I am genuinely excited to keep building all three of these relationships.
And if you have not seen it yet, Lexie did a phenomenal job updating the website. Take a look at www.jessbuninmd.com.
If you are interested in purchasing the book, it is available on Amazon (paperback and ebook) and via the American Association for Physician Leadership (paperback). For AAPL, you have to register (supply your name and email) to purchase it, but you do not have to be a member or join. At AAPL, this code AWARENESS15 will give you 15% off.
If you have read any of the book at all (and have feelings about it), please leave an Amazon Review!
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WITH GRATITUDE
This issue, my gratitude goes somewhere it has been owed for a long time. Walter Reed Army Medical Center made me the doctor I am. I trained there for my Med-Psych residency and my Critical Care fellowship, and I am not sure I can separate who I became as a physician from the people who taught me there (you’ll hear more about Brian Cuneo below and in the book).
And this week, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center took care of my favorite person in the world. Lexie had a minor surgery. She is home and doing great, and by great I mean she is doing everything I have told her not to do (probably no surprise if you know Lexie). I have said "rest" approximately forty times. She has heard me approximately zero times.
Drs. Mike Orestes and Nicole Vietor and their teams took excellent care of her, and the PACU and ward nurses gave more attention and kindness than I think they even realize. One PACU nurse deserves her own sentence. She was an old friend from my days in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, someone I had not seen in years, and she let me back into the PACU early to sit with Lexie even though I was not technically supposed to be there yet. That is not a small thing. That is someone remembering, all these years later, exactly what it feels like to be the person waiting on the other side of the door, and deciding the rule could bend for five more minutes. I am grateful to her, and to every nurse and doctor on that team, more than I can fully say here. |
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FROM THE BOOK
SELF-AWARENESS AND TRUST: LEADING HEALTHCARE TEAMS FROM THE INSIDE OUT
CHAPTER 4: The Lens You Lead Through: Identity, Bias, and the Stories We Bring Into the Room
Chapter 3 was about boundaries and self-compassion. Chapter 4 is about knowing your identity well enough to be true to it, and knowing that your biases will always be there - and that is ok. I’ve been told that this one is a tear-jerker, so be pre-warned!
It opens with a phone call. I came out to my mother, and within minutes her voice went flat and cold. She asked who had corrupted me. She said if people found out she had a gay daughter, she would have to hide. The call ended without resolution, and the silence that followed lasted years.
Years later, I learned she was dying. I went to see her anyway, because she was my mother, and because there is a version of leadership and of basic human decency that asks us to show up for people even when it costs us something. What I did not expect was what my wife did next.
My wife sat with my mother in those final weeks. She prayed with her. She sang hymns with her. She gave her a kind of comfort my mother had never given to us. My wife did not arrive with a grudge or a point to prove. She arrived as herself, completely and without condition, and that wholeness was exactly what my mother needed at the end.
Watching her do that taught me something I had not fully understood about the person I wanted to be, and the leader I wanted to become. I will let you read the rest yourself. |
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A LEADER I AM WATCHING: Dr. Brian Cuneo
One of my most memorable early experiences of trust came from Dr. Brian Cuneo. I met him during one of the most uncertain stretches of my life. I had already been through one surgery trying to figure out what was wrong with me, and it still no one had definitive answer. What would eventually turn out to be Hodgkin's lymphoma was, at that point, still a mystery. I was a resident on the internal medicine wards, and Brian was my attending. One afternoon after rounds, he asked how I was doing, and he meant it. I told him about a strange pressure I had started noticing in my neck and face whenever I moved from standing to sitting, and that it seemed to be getting stronger. He started checking in every day after that, asking about my symptoms, asking about my follow-up, helping me coordinate appointments around my schedule, without ever trying to become my doctor himself. He never took me off my patients. He still expected excellent care from me. I was not treated as fragile. I was treated as capable and not alone.
Brian built his career on that same instinct, training people up without letting them off the hook. He went to medical school at Saint Louis University on an HPSP scholarship, did his residency at Tripler Army Medical Center, and completed his fellowship in pulmonary and critical care at Walter Reed. He stayed on as faculty there, eventually becoming program director for internal medicine. For years, he was one of the people responsible for building doctors for the Army, and I was lucky enough to be one of them. He retired in 2013 after more than two decades of service and moved straight into the same work in civilian medicine, joining MedStar Washington Hospital Center as associate program director for internal medicine. Same essential work, different uniform.
He was a huge reason I went into critical care. He was always a joy to work with, steady, sharp, and fully present, and he brought that same presence to a scared resident who did not yet know what was wrong with her. Brian changed who I was as a doctor. He built my confidence when I needed it most. And in ways I am still discovering, he changed my life. |
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| Upcoming Events:
• Triservice ACP: Aug 26-28, 2026; Bethesda, MD - Presenting: “Can leaders have a bad day?”
• Mission Belonging, Day of Belonging: Sep 19, 2026, Rockwood Manor, Potomac, MD - Presenting: “The Ground We Stand On: Psychological Safety in Creative Communities”
• WIM Summit: Sep 24–26, 2026, Chicago, IL, Presenting:
• “Leading Under Crisis” Panel Discussion Moderated by LTG (ret) Mark Hertling
• “Leading with Relational Precision: The Keystone between Authority and Influence”
• “She’s Too Much, She’s Not Enough: Gendered Communication and Feedback in Medicine”
• StandUp4Doctors Retreat: Oct 9–12, 2026, Ossining, NY
• American Association for Physician Leadership® (AAPL), Oct 22-24, 2026; Scottsdale, AZ - Presenting: “Across the Divide: A Practical Workshop in Civil Discourse.”
• International Coaching Federation, Converge 2026, Oct 28-30, 2026, Washington, DC
Book Launch Events: While I will be launching the book at Mission Belonging (Potomac, MD), Women in Medicine, (Chicago, IL), and American Association for Physician Leaders (Scottsdale, AZ), the following events will be for the book only:
• Healthcare Leadership Foundation Virtual Book Launch: Oct 29, 2026 6-8pm - Block your calendar, Invitation forthcoming
• Army-Navy Country Club, Arlington, VA: Feb 11, 2027 6-8pm - Block your calendar, Invitation forthcoming
• If you have other ideas or would like me to come to your program or institution, please do not hesitate to reach out! |
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| ONE QUESTION FOR REFLECTION
How diverse are the people in your personal and professional circles of influence? Do the people you turn to most often reinforce the assumptions you already hold?
Please consider sharing the newsletter with someone who might like to join my journey.
I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions!
I will write again in 2 weeks!
Warmly,
Jess |
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