ISSUE NO. 01   ·    JUNE 2026 

WELCOME

Hi Jess,

You are one of the first people to receive this, and that is on purpose. I wanted you here at the start. You are a friend, a family member, a colleague, or someone who has shaped me and how I think.

For the next several months, I will be writing a short newsletter (today will be a bit longer) every two weeks while I bring my first book into the world. I am calling this newsletter The Inside Track because that is what you are getting from me: the real view from inside the work, the writing, and the launch, before any of it reaches a wider audience.

Today, I am also formally launching my website: www.jessbuninmd.com. Please hop over and take a look!

WHY I STARTED THIS

For more than two decades I served as an Army physician. I cared for patients in intensive care units and in war zones, and I taught younger doctors how to lead. Somewhere in those years I learned a lesson that took me longer than it should have to understand: the best leaders are rarely the loudest or the most certain. They are the ones who have done the hard work inside themselves first.

That idea became a book. It is called From the Inside Out, and it is about how self-aware leaders build trust and change healthcare from the inside.

The bulk of the writing is finished. The harder part begins now, which is finding the people the book is meant to reach. This newsletter is an important part of how I plan to do that, one honest letter at a time.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN THIS NEWSLETTER

Each issue is short, and you can read it in a couple of minutes. It is built around a few simple things that show up every time.

With Gratitude. A specific thank-you to a person or a moment.

From the Book. A small excerpt or one idea from the manuscript.

A Leader I’m Watching. Someone doing this work well.

Connect with Jess.  Where to find me, including recent and upcoming talks and conversations. 

One Question for Reflection. A single reflection to carry into your week. 

INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK

Self-Awareness and Trust: Leading Healthcare Teams from the Inside Out is a book about leadership that refuses to skip the hard part. Every chapter moves between two elements. First come the personal stories, where I tell the truth about my career, including the decisions I am proud of and the ones I would make differently. Then come the practical applications, where I draw on those experiences, leadership research, and clinical frameworks I built across decades of high-stakes work. The structure is intentional. The dynamics I faced as a military physician, as a critical care doctor at the edge of what medicine can do, as a dean trying to build a community of support, and as a patient in my own hospital are the same ones you may be navigating now, in different forms. Leadership development that sanitizes the struggle is not development. This book will remind you that leadership is hard, and that you are not alone in feeling that way.

The book is built in three phases that depend on one another. The first turns inward, toward the self-awareness that grounds who you are and how you lead. The second turns outward, toward how trust fractures and how we rebuild it, one conversation at a time. The third looks forward, toward the work of building cultures we want to work in and stay in.

As I write at the end of the introduction: "Leadership from the inside out is not a destination. It is a discipline you return to, especially when the stakes are highest. The leaders who do this work build teams that stay, repair relationships others write off, and sustain themselves across careers that might otherwise hollow them out. They do not do it by becoming someone else. They do it by finally, with skill and intention, becoming their best selves. That is what this book is for.”  

A LEADER I AM WATCHING

This newsletter is dedicated to Dr. Rana Awdish Medical Director of Care Experience at Henry Ford Health and best-selling author of In Shock and now After Shock. More importantly (to me at least), Rana has been an inspiration for years. In Shock taught me that I was not alone as a physician-patient, her support helped me to complete my Masters thesis on Empathy, and her words were the first that made me believe that there are others out there who need my book. If you have not read her books, you are not only in for a treat but also for a life and practice changing experience.

This month, I had the opportunity to appear on a panel, 2 podcasts, and a webinar. Take a look:

- Fireside Chat: Lessons Learned on Generational Trust, Cultural Shifts, and Effective Leadership: Artiss Symposium, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (not recorded)

- Civil Discourse and Team Power: Transforming Healthcare from the Inside Out, Heartline with Andrea Austin: Changemaking in Healthcare

- What Builds Trust Between Doctors and the People They Lead, The Podcast by Kevin MD

- Showing Up: LGBTQ+ Physicians on Identity, Care, and Community, Women In Medicine Webinar

- Dr. Jess, Bunin, Speaker and Medical Professional, Warns Communication Breakdown Is Making America's Healthcare Worse

ONE QUESTION FOR REFLECTION

Where in your own work are you leading from the outside in (based on external pressures rather than internal values)?