ISSUE NO. 08   ·    OCTOBER 2026 

WELCOME

Hi Jess,

Below you will find: 

• With Gratitude. A specific thank-you
• From the Book. A small excerpt or 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.

WELCOME (OR WELCOME BACK!)

Life since the last issue has been jam-packed with goodness.

The highlight was the Women in Medicine Summit in Chicago. I joined LTG (Ret.) Mark Hertling, Dr. Gretchen Rickards, and Dr. Lauren Weber for a panel discussion on "Leading Under Crisis." It should come as no surprise that Mark is outstanding at moderating a panel like this, but he went beyond that and created an amazing experience for each one of us. I am so proud to know Gretchen and Lauren, and I am grateful that we get to keep doing leadership work together.

Lauren and I then presented "Leading with Relational Precision: The Keystone Between Authority and Influence." This was our debut of a topic that could optimize leadership conversations, and the audience was right there in it with us. It was great fun.

Finally, I presented "She's Too Much, She's Not Enough." This forty-minute talk could easily have been a four-hour conversation. The questions from the audience were wise and insightful, and I hope we make real progress on every issue we raised before next year's summit.

Lexie and I stayed in Chicago for two more days, which gave me the chance to meet Natalie Benamou in person (and exchange books) after doing a podcast with her. What a lovely human, and what a joy!

I learned this week that talking to strangers in elevators can be a fun-filled experience - especially in Chicago. I shared an elevator with a man wearing a Chicago Bears hat. He was from out of town and had spent the day walking the streets of the city. Every time he saw someone else in a Bears hat, he felt like he had found a kindred spirit and someone he needed to know. He wanted to hug them all and ask how they became Bears fans. Then he would remember that he was in Chicago and be embarrassed by himself all over again. We had a good laugh about it!

On another ride, a woman noticed the book in my hand, read the title, and decided on the spot that she needed a signed copy. I ran up to my room to get her one. I never knew a sale could be so easy.

WITH GRATITUDE

On September 23rd, Lexie and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary. Thirteen years in, I could not be more grateful to share my life with her. What an extraordinary gift she is.

I am also grateful for marriage equality, which made it possible for us to marry at all. It is easy to take a right for granted once you have it, and I never want to forget that ours was hard-won.

As we step into Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I am grateful to be a survivor. I am grateful to my amazing primary care doctor, Dr. Joan Ritter, and to the technology and screening guidelines that allowed me to find my tumor early. Catching it early is a gift I do not take for granted.

This month, I hope to help raise awareness. If you are due for a screening, please schedule it. If someone you love is due, give them a nudge. Please have an in-depth conversation with your doctor to see what screening is most appropriate for you. To emphasize this point, my tumor was not visible on mammogram or ultrasound, so my MRI (ordered by Joan) saved my life!

FROM THE BOOK

SELF-AWARENESS AND TRUST: LEADING HEALTHCARE TEAMS FROM THE INSIDE OUT

CHAPTER 7, FILLING THE CRACK WITH GOLD

There is an ancient Japanese art form called kintsugi. When a bowl breaks, the artisan repairs it with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. The cracks are not hidden. They are highlighted, and the history of what the bowl has endured becomes the most beautiful thing about it.

Chapter 7 is about trust, and trust works the same way. It breaks in every meaningful relationship, whether that relationship is a team, a marriage, a friendship, or a mentorship. The question is never whether the bowl will crack. The question is what you do when it does.

I first learned trust as a patient. During residency, while my doctors were still trying to diagnose what would become my Hodgkin lymphoma, my attending, Dr. Brian Cuneo, checked on my symptoms every day without ever lowering his expectations of me as a physician. Dr. Greg Argyros helped rally the strongest team possible for my care, and later, when depression was pulling me off course, he called me with a hard truth delivered with genuine belief. Both of them taught me that support and accountability belong together.

I learned it again from nurses. Ryan and Bonnie trusted that I would come running whenever they yelled for me, and one day I did, in a moment none of us will ever forget. Later, as chief of critical care, I watched Ann, Micki, and Jamie build a culture where people showed up for one another as clinicians and as human beings.

From those people and those moments, I built the TRUSTED model, seven practices that help leaders build trust and, just as importantly, repair it.

Then the bowl cracked. 

What our team chose to do next, is waiting for you in Chapter 7…

A LEADER I AM WATCHING: SEEMA REZA, CEO, Mission Belonging

I first encountered Seema Reza when she delivered the keynote address at the inaugural MED HEART conference for the humanities in medicine, and there was no looking back. I was intrigued from the moment she began speaking. Then I learned what she had built through Mission Belonging, and I learned about the lives it has saved.

The funny thing is that we should have met years ago. In 2010, Seema began working with service members, veterans, and their families at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Somehow, our paths never crossed. Better late than never.

Seema is a poet and essayist and the author of A Constellation of Half-Lives and When the World Breaks Open. The work she started at Walter Reed grew into a multi-hospital and community arts program, and today she serves as Chair and CEO of Mission Belonging. The organization brings veterans, military families, caregivers, healthcare workers, and civilians together in workshops led by professional artists, using writing and art as tools for narration, self-care, and connection. The Mission Belonging workshops have reached tens of thousands of people.

Seema’s work has earned wide recognition. It was featured in the 2018 HBO documentary We Are Not Done Yet. In 2015, the USO of Metropolitan Washington-Baltimore awarded her the Colonel John Gioia Patriot Award for her work with service members. In 2019, she was selected as a George W. Bush Institute Stand-To Veteran Leadership Program Scholar, and in 2023, as the Pauli Murray Art for Racial Justice Fellow at the Antiracism Research and Policy Center at American University. Her writing has appeared in McSweeney's, The Washington Post, The LA Review, and many others. She has led workshops in correctional facilities, hospitals, schools, and universities, and she has performed at universities, theaters, festivals, bookstores, conferences, and, by her own account, one fine mattress shop.

What moves me most is what she believes. Mission Belonging's values state that "the best way to find belonging is to give belonging" and that "everyone is more than their worst moment." Seema has built an entire community around these ideas. I saw it with my own eyes at United Against Silence, where veteran after veteran stood up to read poetry and share their stories, and many credited Mission Belonging with saving their lives.

For those of us who lead, Seema offers a model worth studying. She does not wait for people to feel like they belong before inviting them in. She creates a place where people can tell the truth first to themselves and then to each other, and she trusts that the telling itself will heal. That is leadership through connection, and healthcare needs much more of it.

If you want to learn more about her work or support it, visit missionbelonging.org. Seema is a leader I will keep watching, and I hope you will too.

CONNECT WITH JESS

Press Releases:

󠁯•󠁏󠁏 Challenging Women To Recognize the Leader They Are

󠁯•󠁏󠁏 The ‘double bind’ for women in healthcare leadership: ‘Too much’ or ‘not enough’

Upcoming Events:

󠁯•󠁏󠁏 You Don’t Have To Carry This Alone, West Point Women Seminar, Oct 6, 2026 (Please contact me if you are interested in attending.)

󠁯•󠁏󠁏 StandUp4Doctors Retreat: Oct 9–12, 2026, Ossining, NY 

󠁯•󠁏󠁏 International Society for Hair Restoration Surgeons World Congress, Oct 15, 2026; Congress is in Rio de Janeiro, but I will be presenting virtually: “Standing FIRM: Assertive Communication for Women in Male-Dominated Professions.”

󠁯•󠁏󠁏 Life After Military Medicine Panel, Oct 15, 2026, 7pm, Cordell Room at the Palisades, 4835 Cordell Ave, Bethesda, MD

󠁯•󠁏󠁏 American Association of Physician Leadership, 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: 

󠁯•󠁏󠁏 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!

Self-Awareness and Trust: Leading Healthcare Teams From the Inside Out is now available. You can buy the book at Amazon and the American Association for Physician Leadership (AAPL).

📖 Learn more: jessbuninmd.com/book

ONE QUESTION FOR REFLECTION

Is there a broken relationship that you have been avoiding instead of repairing? What is one action you can take to begin the repair? 

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