Acknowledgments

THE GOOD DOCTOR

FIRST AND FOREMOST, I would like to thank the seven doctors profiled in this book—Mike Englesbe, Michigan Medicine; Merit Cudkowicz, Massachusetts General Hospital; Emily Sedgwick, HCA Houston Healthcare West; Joe Sakran, Johns Hopkins Medicine; Laura Monson, Texas Children’s Hospital; Lara Johnson, Parkland Health and Hospital System; and Babacar Cisse, New York–Presbyterian Hospital. They trusted me to capture their stories accurately and convey them in a way that is consistent with their values. None are self-promoters, but all could see that there were noble reasons to share the stories of their noble work.

I also want to thank my colleagues in healthcare who appreciated the idea behind this book and then pointed me toward physicians whom I really had to meet. For example, Laura Forese, executive vice president at New York Presbyterian, introduced me to Babacar Cisse; Fred Cerise, CEO of Parkland Health and Hospital System, introduced me to Lara Johnson; and Larry Hollier of Texas Children’s Hospital introduced me to Laura Monson.

I’d like to thank friends and colleagues who have created and shared their insights about the nature of resilience and grit, two of whom deserve special mention. Deirdre Mylod, who works with me at Press Ganey, is the real thinker behind our framework for thinking about burnout, engagement, and activation. Angela Duckworth, the University of Pennsylvania psychologist (and my cousin), has created a body of work around grit that has deep and obvious influences throughout this book.

I want to thank Pat Ryan and my other colleagues at Press Ganey for encouraging and supporting the writing of this book. They are good people with good values—and they all love a good story. As each chapter was concluded, I would send the draft to about 10 of them during the next weekend, because, well, this is the kind of stuff they like to read on a Sunday morning—a way of getting ready for the week ahead.

I am grateful again to Beverly Merz for doing what she has done with all my books—serving as a trusted editor, someone who makes the manuscript better without making the author mad! I’d also like to thank Casey Ebro and her team at McGraw-Hill, for their confidence that what we thought might be a good idea actually was one, and then for their effectiveness in moving the book through the publication process so quickly.

Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to Soheyla Gharib, my wife, who has been so supportive of all aspects of my work for decades now—but who gives her greatest respect on those occasions when I prove to be a good doctor myself. She’s a wonderful physician and the daughter of a wonderful physician (to whom this book is dedicated). Forty years after meeting Soheyla on the first day of our internship, I remain endlessly interested in impressing her. Nothing impresses her more than going the extra mile for a patient.