Position Aware Button
White Arrow Black Arrow

Finding Meaning In Medicine

With Dr. Jane Gagliardi

Video Player

Stories to Solutions

Interview Recorded on: August 9th, 2025
Dr. Jane Gagliardi shares her journey from a college swimmer who avoided the pre-med label to a thoughtful leader who challenges how we think about healthcare training and wellness. Her story reveals something refreshing: you can maintain your idealism in medicine, but it requires being intentional about what you protect.
‍
Dr. Gagliardi has a stubborn commitment to what she calls "dinosaurish" practices—refusing to copy-paste in medical records, stopping to talk with families in hospital hallways at 7 PM on a Sunday, writing progress notes with genuine care. These are her ways of staying connected to why she entered medicine in the first place. "Taking care of patients is a giant privilege," she explains, and that belief has guided every career decision she's made.
‍
As associate director of the Train New Trainers (TNT) Fellowships, Dr. Gagliardi has watched medicine evolve over two decades. She's seen the pendulum swing from "just be more resilient" to recognizing that individual wellness practices can't fix broken systems. Her work now focuses on empowering healthcare providers to identify and change the small things that make care delivery frustrating—whether that's creating better order sets or implementing quality improvement projects that actually stick.
Interview Recorded on: August 9th, 2025
Dr. Jane Gagliardi shares her journey from a college swimmer who avoided the pre-med label to a thoughtful leader who challenges how we think about healthcare training and wellness. Her story reveals something refreshing: you can maintain your idealism in medicine, but it requires being intentional about what you protect.
‍
Dr. Gagliardi has a stubborn commitment to what she calls "dinosaurish" practices—refusing to copy-paste in medical records, stopping to talk with families in hospital hallways at 7 PM on a Sunday, writing progress notes with genuine care. These are her ways of staying connected to why she entered medicine in the first place. "Taking care of patients is a giant privilege," she explains, and that belief has guided every career decision she's made.
‍
As associate director of the Train New Trainers (TNT) Fellowships, Dr. Gagliardi has watched medicine evolve over two decades. She's seen the pendulum swing from "just be more resilient" to recognizing that individual wellness practices can't fix broken systems. Her work now focuses on empowering healthcare providers to identify and change the small things that make care delivery frustrating—whether that's creating better order sets or implementing quality improvement projects that actually stick.
See More
See Less
Links to Solutions
Systems shape wellness more than individual resilience.
 While mindfulness and self-care practices have value, they can't compensate for healthcare systems that prevent clinicians from providing the care their patients need. Real well-being comes from aligning our values with our actions and empowering people to improve the systems they work within.
Quality improvement is personal empowerment.
When learners and clinicians identify small, fixable problems and turn them into achievable projects, they plant seeds that improve care for years to come. That sense of agency—knowing you made something better—creates meaning that resilience training alone can't provide.
Human connection is what we can't afford to lose.
As we adopt AI and efficiency tools in medicine, we should delegate documentation and administrative tasks, not critical thinking or patient connection. The story-sharing, the understanding, the recognition that we're not alone—that's what makes healthcare meaningful for both providers and patients.

Dr. Gagliardi's vision for TNT's future captures her approach perfectly: grow big enough to reach more people, but stay small enough to maintain the humanity. It's a philosophy that could guide not just training programs, but how we rebuild healthcare itself.
Meet Our Guest
Dr. Jane Gagliardi
Jane P. Gagliardi, MD, MHS, is passionate about clinical education programs that transform clinical practice and is, therefore, thrilled to serve as Associate Director of the Train New Trainers Primary Care Psychiatry Fellowship. She is also Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Learning Environment and Well-Being at Duke University School of Medicine. As a past president of the Association of Medicine and Psychiatry, Dr. Gagliardi remains active in the organization. Dr. Gagliardi is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a member of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry. In keeping with her efforts to improve clinical care for patients made vulnerable in our healthcare system, Dr. Gagliardi is involved in quality improvement, research, health equity and clinician wellbeing support initiatives. Dr. Gagliardi is a co-principal investigator on a project funded by the Josiah Macy Foundation to bring principles of nonviolent communication and civility to the healthcare workplace. She has authored or co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters on topics ranging from medical education to evidence-based medicine and quality improvement to health equity.
Connect with Millie Christie
Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/servingkidshope/
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/dr-patricia-md/
Connect to Dr. Jane Gagliardi
Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-gagliardi-8a28b16/
Business Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tntpcp/
Business Instagram: @tntfellowships
X (Twitter)  @gagliardi_jane