Impact in Action: Leadership, Caregiving, and System Change

In this episode of Amplify: Elevating Patient Voices, hosts Ursula Mann and Brent Korte sit down with Sandra Walker, venture capital partner at Hard Climate Venture Studio and founder of Viacern.

Sandra has spent decades working across global healthcare systems—spanning pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, diagnostics, venture capital, and now climate innovation. Throughout her career, she has been drawn to tackling the kinds of complex, messy problems that require systems thinking, collaboration, and bold leadership.

The conversation explores how leaders make decisions within complex systems, why unconscious bias often shapes those decisions, and how personal experiences—like caregiving—can influence how we approach change.

Sandra also shares her journey as a remote caregiver for her father during a critical health period, highlighting the emotional and logistical challenges many caregivers face but rarely talk about.

From healthcare leadership to climate innovation, this episode examines how different systems intersect—and why solving tomorrow’s healthcare challenges requires thinking beyond traditional boundaries.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Amplify, Elevating Patient Voices, a podcast powered by patient voice partners, where real stories spark bold conversations. I'm Ursula Mann.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

And I'm Brent Cordy. Together, we're talking with patients, caregivers, and the healthcare change makers who are listening and taking action.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

From personal journeys to policy shifts, these are the voices shaping a healthcare system that listens.

SPEAKER_04 0:32

On today's Amplify show, I am here with my co-host, Brent Cordy.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

Brent and I are delighted. Today we're going to be talking to a very old friend of mine, Sandra Walker, and she's done some really neat things. She's currently a venture capital partner at Hard Climate Venture Studio, and she's the founder of IACERN. There's layers here that I have to dive back to talk about just how cool this is. This is someone who's an exceptional leader in the pharmaceutical industry at a senior leadership level for many years.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

She's worked in pharmaceuticals, she's worked in biotechnology, she's worked across diagnostic industries and really guided large-scale transformations, which I think Brent is what kind of what led her to ViaCern, which is really helping leaders uncover unconscious biases, shaping their choices. What a pivot. And then from there, she went on to manage her life, which involved remote caregiving. We're going to talk a little bit about that today. And then she moved on to have some significant experiences that she was able to pivot skills and support and even get passionate about solving big, messy problems, which is even in the environment and climate change.

SPEAKER_04 1:42

Brent, I've thrown a lot of topics at you that we're going to cover today. This is in one person.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

That's a lot.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Exceptional, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:50

I'm not sure how we're going to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Jumps out at you.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

All of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

All of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Interesting to be meeting someone that you've known for a long time and have a strong friendship with. And I've just recently met Sandy, so I'm looking forward to the conversation. But just the breadth of background and areas that not just within health, but in other parts of our collective world that's involved, as I said, from the pharmabiotech side, the venture capital side, which I always hear a lot about as well. But then Asian Caregiver, Climate, how those all fit together and whether they fit together neatly or messy, as Z said, I think is a good part of the conversation.

SPEAKER_04 2:20

I think that's a really good way to frame it.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

It's a lot of different things that come together. And if I think of one word that comes to mind when I think of Sandy, okay, maybe two, because the first one was awesome. But the second word is impact. And I think we saw that, Brent. You and I, we had the patient engagement forum. Sandy was a presenter and she talked about unconscious bias. And I'm getting goosebumps now, but Brent, it was the next day we had a team meeting at Patient Wives Partners. We were about to make a decision, and one of our teammates, Barry, said, Wait, yesterday we learned about how to vote and do this better. And we're gonna have to write it down and do this in a different way.

SPEAKER_04 2:59

Let's stop. We instantly implemented what Sandy had taught us the day before.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

I totally remember that. I think it changed my answer, even though that likely did, because I'm often waiting to hear what somebody else thinks. This may be a real simple example, but you go to the restaurant. Well, you order first, and you kind of hear what other people say. Well, that might be a better thing than what I wanted. And that's maybe an oversimplified version, but certainly that happens every day and that's had an impact. So I'm really excited to get into this conversation with Sandy and explore a number of areas that we want to talk about with her.

SPEAKER_03 3:29

I love that. And I think it is a neat way to do things because otherwise maybe we're too agreeable.

SPEAKER_04 3:34

We're just like, yeah, that sounds good, without necessarily weighing all the factors that could come in.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Depends on the day.

SPEAKER_04 3:40

Depends on the day. I gotta catch you on a good one.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Sometimes you're agreeable, sometimes I'm not, you know, like it depends on the day.

SPEAKER_04 3:47

I'll make sure I keep that in mind next time I have to ask you something hard.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

My wife would tell me that for sure. Sometimes you're agreeable, sometimes not.

SPEAKER_04 3:53

And that's how I'm gonna lead with that. Brent, I have a big question. Is this an agreeable day or should I wait until tomorrow when we meet?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

I kind of waffle like every 10 minutes or so. So it could change through this call.

SPEAKER_04 4:03

I'll make sure. We're gonna need like a color signal or something. I'll know when to ask you tough questions when I'm looking for agreement. Brent, say yes. Okay, here's my questions.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

All right, Brent.

SPEAKER_04 4:11

We have a jam-packed list of stuff, all leading to impact in massively different areas, which is super cool and a little bit different than what we talk about. But when we talk about change makers on Amplify and people making a difference in healthcare and in their life and beyond, this is super cool.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Sandy, I want to welcome you to today's show. Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure. I just love hearing YouTube banter back and forth too. It's really fun. And thank you for your thoughtful comments. And thank you for being brave to implement something right out of the gate. I love it. I mean, that's a testament to you two and the team that you're willing to hear something and that you thought was interesting and really try it out right away. So well done, you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Well, it's funny and laughing to Andy and laughing because Ursula mentioned it earlier. She's like, let's do a podcast. Okay, sure. How many people do you know that say, let's do a podcast? I have a few friends that have mentioned that to me and they go, Oh, yeah, I'd love to do a podcast. Then I tell them, Ursula, when she gets some idea, is like, okay, we're doing it, and like right away, away we go.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

This has been a ton of fun and really excited about chatting with you.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Exactly. You make things happen, right? You don't just talk about it because some people you hear that, right? It's a year later and they're like, Oh, I should probably still do that.

SPEAKER_04 5:20

Well, I got Brent on an agreeable day. He said yes, and then my job was make it happen. So TikTok, right?

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Kudos to you. I love the podcast. I really love what you're doing. It's such an important opportunity to give people a voice. And I love the breadth of your topics too. I really think it speaks to the breadth of healthcare and of caregiving. And there's so many unique stories out there. And thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

This is also now going to become our promo podcast. I love it, Sandy.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

A big fan. I really genuinely think it's very, very important. And I think this voice has often historically been missing. And so the more ways that whether it's this kind of a channel or all the work that you're doing with Patient Voice Partners, I think there's not kind of too many ways that we can help the patient have a really strong voice. So this is a great one.

SPEAKER_04 6:04

Well, thank you, Sandy. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 6:06

So let's dive in. So I am interested.

SPEAKER_04 6:10

Your fascination and being drawn to big, messy problems, where most of us would want to run the opposite direction, let's be honest. I can handle little messy, big. I'm like, ooh, no, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

So, how did it happen that you realized in yourself that you built a career on complexity, but you were genuinely drawn to this? How did that start? What was your fascination with I want big, I want messy, and let's solve this together. Oh, that's absolutely my favorite. If someone says to me, Oh, here's this very complex, messy problem that nobody's figured out before, I'm in. Like that's the most exciting news I've heard. I think I've always really loved systems, right? So very complex things and then try to figure out how they work. So if we change this one little thing over here, what does it do to the system? And when you start thinking about systems, and I think this could actually be one of these red threads, as I was reflecting on coming to see you today on like how do these, you're right, pieces fit together, like 30 years in healthcare, but then you like went and trained as a founder and a VC and went into venture, all these different pieces. I'm very passionate about climate. And realistically, healthcare is an incredibly complex system. There's a lot of different interested parties, and there's a lot of different pieces, a lot of processes, and it's really, really complex. And to try and make improvements in that space is complicated. So it's never dull. I love that about it too. But then if you think about how do you help founders and how do you create like an ecosystem around how do we bring really interesting innovation to life, that happens in healthcare, but obviously you can do it in other areas too. And that was a biotech medical diagnostics link. And then ultimately, really energy transition, decarbonization, and then how we help the climate. Again, these are massive global systems created by humans, which means humans can also fix them, which I also love. And then ultimately the climate. I mean, nature is the ultimate system, the original system. So I feel like there's things in that they're all like complex and messy, but you can actually find ways to work with them and then create really strong impact by making actually even really small changes and working with the humans within them. So I think that's probably the line that draws through them all. Sandy, you've worked globally across very different systems and cultures. What did that teach you about how decisions actually got made? It's a good point. It's not always what it looks like on the surface. And again, to me, if you take a big enough problem, it becomes a global problem, which is really helpful to be able to draw on my learnings from pharma and working globally. I worked with up to 130 countries and these big multinationals, which I've also always been very grateful to have had the opportunity to do that. It's interesting, it highlights a polarity that we have to navigate between standardization and customization. So I saw in multiple companies in different situations companies wanting to make decisions where you make things more standard. And I see this in healthcare. So, how might we globally do one thing? And there's a lot of benefits for standardization. There's a lot of things that we can do that you can get economy of scale, and there's benefits for that. But then the reality is on the other pole, there's customization. And what I also found was in each unique country, and often even within regions of countries, they had different healthcare systems, they had different cultural backgrounds and histories. And all of that impacts healthcare. Healthcare is ultimately about the patient and about their families, about people. Every person comes to their healthcare situation with, you know, all of that experience and background and history. And so that fully standardized system isn't necessarily going to create the best experience for patients and for families. And that's ultimately when we get the best healthcare is when we can also create a really great experience and a great outcome. So I found often with the decisions, it was really a pull between those two. Like, how can we standardize across all of these different markets or areas or hospitals or situations or even disease areas while also holding on to the fact that there's gonna need to be some changes across them. So the very best decisions I've ever seen were ones that walk that line really well. And it's hard. It's hard to do. And often we end up on one pole or the other. But I think even just thinking about that as we make decisions, especially in these big complex systems, can have a really big impact.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

As you say, maybe it's on one side of that line versus the other side of the line. Not always at the poles, but sometimes on one side of the line versus the other. Awful. As you're talking, I'm hearing the messiness get even more complex, right? Because when you talk about multiple countries, we think nothing within Canada alone. And the multiple different levels, layers, and differences between the provinces and so on. I wanted to pick up on something you mentioned earlier too, is one small change along the pathway. How does that impact down the road? And how often they give a pyramid that we see in healthcare, the acute care is at the top, but those changes that happen in primary care or along the way and the impact those.

SPEAKER_03 11:04

Yeah, absolutely. And that's one thing. After working in different countries around the world in healthcare, it's been really fascinating to see the approach that different healthcare systems take. And I think there are challenges in the Canadian system, and of course there are. And I'm a huge believer in continuous improvement. Like I believe nothing is ever done and we can always get better. But seeing some of the other systems, to be honest, Canada actually looks pretty good. And I do think that some of it is about preventative care. Could we do better? Of course, absolutely, we could do a lot more. But primary care is where people go first, right? There's always going to be acute care and accidents. But if we can have more people doing well, doing preventative medicine at the very beginning, that little ounce of prevention, right? Pound of cure. I think it really is true. And so anything that we can do to support primary care physicians, to get people more access, to encourage people to go, to get things done when you can do prevention ahead of time as opposed to treating something later down the road can make a world of difference. I really think we have an opportunity to really focus in on the early stages we have to do across the whole system. But if there is anything that we can do, you realize that's a big messy problem, Sandy. You focus more on prevention.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

It's a huge, messy problem.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

We have people that don't have family doctors. That's the first thing that gets cut because we're like, we need to pay for the acute. We can't, dot, dot, dot. Exactly. And it's not easy. And some of it is around education, but there's a cost to education too, and how do you make that relevant for people? And so it is a huge challenge. And I do think that it's also around all the different interested parties. So it's also part of the complexity comes from there being a lot of different people involved, but actually the solution also comes from the fact that there's a lot of different groups involved. So I think there's a huge role for patient advocacy groups, and then they can be better supported. So anything that we can do to help those patient advocacy groups to have a stronger voice. And then obviously the work that you're doing, I think has a tremendous impact as well. How can we work together more closely with government is one of the things that I loved about the conference that you put on. I was amazed after spending so much time in healthcare where sometimes there's some adversarial issues between different groups, between industry, between government, between the various different groups. And we've moved past that. What I saw that was so encouraging was that people were really coming together towards a common goal. And where I've seen messy problems get solutions is when people come together, they're curious, they're seeking to understand, and they're willing to come to the table with an open mind and really try and understand the issue, the system from someone else's perspective, and then understand how decisions that are made might impact not just themselves and how they're being incentivized and their own work, but how it might impact others. That's when we start to get solutions that can have a really big impact across the system. Thanks for sharing that, Sandy. And I'm interested, decision science really led you to the path down via certain where we're thinking about how leaders uncover unconscious bias and how they make choices. And why is bias, in your opinion, still so underestimated in healthcare, in innovation, and in capital? Thank you for asking. And this is one of my favorite topics. So I will like keep it brief because I could talk about this all day long, as I'm sure most people are aware. It's just our neuroscience, right? It's how our brains work that just to navigate how many decisions we have to make in a day, we make mental shortcuts. It's completely part of our biology, but also being aware of the fact that we do that can make a tremendous difference. And there are a lot of decisions that get made in healthcare, all the way through from industry and what decisions, what products come forward, how those products are brought to market, what gets covered, you know, with a clinician, what decisions they're making around a patient's healthcare. Each one of those decisions has the potential to have some of these shortcuts baked into them. And the shortcuts can create errors realistically in the system. So I think people tend to not think about that. And the system moves really quickly as we think about efficiencies and back to that kind of what I was talking about with sort of standardization, customization. Customization takes time, right? And often these are really high pressure situations where you don't have a lot of time. And that's where we're even more prone to making these sort of shortcuts. So I think there's a huge opportunity for us to think through at the individual level, even at as a patient, as you're going into a physician's office, know that's the pressure that they're under. How might you be able to explain something in a way that's succinct and quick, but also is compelling and tells your case and also be willing to challenge, right? I think in those situations, we make can sometimes make snap decisions. And so if we can, or if there's mechanisms that we can build in where people feel like they can say, wait, wait, wait, like stop for a second, like help me. I don't understand, or help me explain, like explain to you how you got to that decision. Cause I don't know if that's actually taking into consideration all the information, it can make a really big difference. And then across the system, understanding as everyone comes to the table together, everyone's shaped by different things. People can might have different incentives, there's potentially trust issues, there's some power dynamics, there's cultural norms. So there's a lot happening, especially as a group comes together and makes decisions. So the more that we can build some systems, some structure around how decisions are made, you two started off talking about the fact that as you were making a decision together, you actually paused and thought about not just what the decision is, but how we make it. Putting some structures in place around how the decision is made so that some of these biases are less likely to happen can make a really big difference.

SPEAKER_04 16:42

I really like your question. How did you come to that decision? Brent, I'm gonna have to ask you that more next time. You give me a yes or a no, I'm gonna say, how did you come to that decision?

SPEAKER_00 16:50

I might say, Well, is this the shortcut time with Xandy's talking about? Or is it one of those I'll say go with it? You know, snap decisions that I end up making, or go with the fall. But I kind of want to pick up on that a little bit like that, because sometimes the snap decisions or the shortcuts that we make in our minds sometimes come because of historical or just kind of what we know works. And we think about that within the healthcare system, that ends up being kind of part of that bottom of the pyramid that a lot of things happen because it always happened that way. But I'm interested in your global because you've had global experience that you were talking about, and how that's shaped how you look at risk, because all those decisions along the way impact risk and how leaders present themselves and that sort of thing. So even your impact, whether it was informal biotech, uh VC, that sort of thing. But yeah, just how how risk is evaluated and considered and all that.

SPEAKER_03 17:41

Yeah, it's a great question. And realistically, it is a driver. And so there's a few different factors. So one, each individual person has their own feelings about risk. They call it risk tolerance, but it's really around sort of approach to risk, right? And so just even as an individual, the first step, self-awareness. Understanding yourself. Do you like to take a few more chances? Are there certain situations where you'd like to take more chances? You feel more comfortable with that? Are there places where you'd prefer to not and stick with the status quo? So even just taking the time to be a bit more mindful and understanding yourself and that self-awareness can make a really big difference because it does risk does have an impact on your decisions. In the healthcare system itself, it's interesting, there's actually country differences. So this has been studied. I think it's fascinating that sort of how decisions are made and risk tolerance itself actually has a cultural component to it. So in some places, that risk is more rewarded and more seen as socially acceptable. And in other cultures, it's seen as more reckless. So that gets layered on as well. And the reality is it's also a factor of what you're taking into consideration that is risky, right? So sometimes people say, well, we're gonna do nothing. And the reality is there's risk in doing nothing as well, but people don't always think about it that way. So really unpacking what are the potential risks, and then are those validated? We also make a lot of assumptions around risk in terms of what might happen, the likelihood that it could happen. And so really unpacking that and saying, what am I actually worried about here? And is that likely to happen realistically? And do I really need to worry about that? And how much of a factor should it have in the decision can make a really big difference in terms of challenging ourselves. You might still reach the same conclusion, but I think the chances are you'll learn a lot along the way and you might actually find yourself making a bit of a different decision.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

I know for me, a lot of times you think of, well, can I manage this risk? The risk level, and again, that changes. And I've had a few people say this, and this comes more within government where they'll talk about change risk assessment and having a social license to you know to move forward on something. Have you built that kind of capacity? Does it exist whether it's provincially, nationally, or in various countries and so on? Kind of that social license as well.

SPEAKER_03 20:00

Indeed. Sandy, speaking about people and risk, amidst solving big, messy problems, you had a personal situation where you became a remote caregiver, which at times can feel risky because you feel guilty not being closer to say, I need to be there, I need to help. Here's what I need to do. Tell us a little bit about what was happening in your personal journey, how you came to be a remote caregiver and what was happening. Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for asking about that. So, just a little backstory. So I live in British Columbia. My parents retired in Alberta. They had friends there, they had been working there, and so they decided to retire there. But I had never lived there. They did have friends, but we didn't have a deep family background there. My brother lives in Sweden, has for many years, and sort of on my own in Canada. And my parents are older, and my dad had always had cardiac issues and had really started to decompensate. We learned that he needed a cruintuple bypass. And so it was really challenging. I think dealing with any kind of parent illness is really, really hard. I can speak to cardiac. I can't obviously speak to every disease, but for that one, because there's such a risk of like suddenly something can happen, it's not really like a gradual decline, although he was also having that. It's one of those things where like every time the phone rings, something happens. Like you're always constantly being like, oh, is this the event? Right. Because we knew it was coming. And it was just that sort of like being on edge all the time and then knowing that you're pretty far away. I mean, it, yes, I'm very lucky that now with the time we live in, I can hop on a flight and I can book something quickly and I have the resources where I could pay for that. I realize other people couldn't might not be able to do that. So I realized that's coming from a place of abundance and privilege, which I really appreciate. But it still added an extra burden. So that was really, really tough. And then he ended up being on a wait list. And I will give a little bit of a positive shout out to the healthcare system. I think we often Hear negative things and they're totally valid. And I get that. But my experience was actually really positive. And I've talked to the people in other countries. You know, I worked down in the US, I worked in globally, and they say, like, oh, this healthcare system, you have to wait forever. And actually, I found it really efficient. So it was based on acuity. And we knew that if his need increased, he went higher up on the list. And that meant to me back to this standardization, customization, how do you balance this? How do you make it the best for everyone? A system. This was such an example of that. Like to me, I knew and I felt confident and trusted that if he got worse, he was going to go higher in the list. But the people above him on the list were really needed it. Like they needed it more than he did. And so that made a lot of sense to me. And so again, maybe going back to looking at it from a systems point of view, that system actually worked really, really well. And then he got to the point where eventually he was ready to be at the front row of the surgery. So it sounds like there was a period of time you're really waiting by the phone. You had a bit of angst if that phone rings because you don't know if it's good news, bad news.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Are you jumping on a plane? Are you dropping what you're doing at work? Are you in a position you can fly?

SPEAKER_03 23:09

Tell us a little bit about that. It felt like constant and it was always with you. And I know most people don't go anywhere without their phone, but it was like extreme. You never wanted to miss that call or worry. And then even when it was getting closer to when he was going to have the surgery, but we didn't know the date until pretty close to it. So again, you're navigating your home life and all that. The other thing is because I wasn't there all the time and I couldn't go that often to check on him. We were really leaning into around him. Like we were leaning into the people that we knew and their friends and like checking in. And my parents are quite stoic, like they were really good. I was worried they maybe weren't gonna tell me exactly like if they weren't doing well, and you can't see for yourself. So it's sort of go the around and ask the friends, how are they actually doing? And can you tell me? But at some point it creates a burden on them as well. You want to be mindful of that. And I think that's one of the really tough things about being a remote caregiver is how do you leverage the people around them that are closer, but without kind of overstepping? And that always felt like it was a little bit of a dance. It was a smart way to navigate and chat with other people. And thank you for sharing that your father's such a positive experience. Happy to hear that. That's wonderful. Interested, any advice that you have for others out there that are remote caregivers as to how to manage their energy, manage the situation, and perhaps hopefully have as good of an experience as possible. Yeah, absolutely. I'm gonna give advice that I probably didn't take myself. It's easier to give advice to other people. Like be kind to yourself and cut yourself a bit of slack. Like I think it can be really easy to be hard on yourself and feel like I should be doing more, I should be going more. And it's hard. You've got a job, you've got local responsibilities. There's a cost associated with traveling all the time, both like family cost and work cost, but less so just financial too. I think too, when you do reach out or when you do have a chance to be there, obviously be fully present as much as you can. I really tried to do that. So if I did have a chance to have a phone call with them, or when I did go there, I tried to not be distracted by everything else happening. I'd let work know I really need to be very focused in this moment. But I think just honestly, you're doing better than you think, and you're doing a better job than you think. So yeah, be kind to yourself. Thanks, Andy.

SPEAKER_04 25:27

I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Well, which is so important. I I think that when we talk about caregivers overall, like you're talking about remote, cutting yourself some slack basically as a remote caregiver. But for caregivers overall, I think that holds true. The reason why you're a caregiver or you become a caregiver, it's because you care. You're involved in being present to allow yourself to do that. Because we've talked about systems as well, but just around healthcare leaders and it are there things that given your broader view and your personal experience as well as a caregiver, are there things do you still think that healthcare leaders underestimate about the caregiver experience?

SPEAKER_03 26:03

Oh, that's a really good question. I would say yes and no. I actually think there's more kind of hidden caregivers than you would think. And so there are, I think, lots of leaders who either are caregivers or have caregivers in their family. And I think they just don't often necessarily think of that like personal experience. There's sort of the work bucket and the personal bucket. That's actually one place where I think there could be an opportunity to merge the two a little bit more. Really think about it and also be a little bit more open about the fact that you are a caregiver. I felt like sometimes, at least for me as a leader, I feel like this is changing. Over the 30 years, I think it's improved. But I think there was a time when you really were supposed to be like stoic and had all the answers and weren't supposed to bring your like personal life to work. And I really hope that's changing so that as a leader, you can also talk about it and say, I'm also managing all of these different aspects of my life. And one of these aspects is caregiving and actually talk to people about it. Cause I think as a leader, if you do that, it it really sets a tone and a direction for people in your team and in your organization to understand that this is really important work. It's often unpaid work, it's often really difficult. And so I think how like standing up and really explaining that and being transparent and honest about it can make a really big difference. And then at the sort of what you have influence over as a leader, it's the importance of building a system that incentivizes building trust and inclusivity. So if you have the opportunity to, if you're in pharma, you have the opportunity to include more underserved patients in trials, include more underserved voices, making sure that the patient experience is really well included and integrated into the decisions that you make and the strategy that you have. And then for healthcare system leaders, obviously, the more we can do to help build trust in the system, it's really an experience. Like, yes, we need really great healthcare outcomes, but the how matters. And so if there's ways that you can create a system that makes it easier for healthcare givers to provide a really great experience, I've found really almost universally people want to. I've talked to lots of healthcare professionals that want to do a great job. They want to create a great experience, they want to do that. Sometimes the system's really against them. So anything that we can do to give them a little bit more time or really help them to do even some of those small acts, a little one more minute, one more question can make a really, really big difference for the experience that's created.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

One of the things I'm hearing from you, and also like I've certainly experienced it, and I'm sure Ursula and most people, because it was like at some point in our lives, we're all caregivers. Yes. And not just us that are here, but healthcare professionals are also caregivers. That's one thing. So thank you for your thoughts on that. I don't know, Ursula, do you want to pivot to the next topic? Because I think it's a good segue, actually, as we look at some of the work that Sandy's done with Viacern and just the focus on unconscious bias that we talked about earlier in decision making. Do you want to move over onto that?

SPEAKER_03 29:06

Yeah, I wanted to say thank you for calling out the permission of people to be caregivers because Brent and I have done some projects and it's interesting, I'm a caregiver.

SPEAKER_04 29:14

And I was astounded by the number of people that choose the other category when they had to self-identify. They choose other with an explanation.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

And then they had to say, I'm a spouse, I'm a child. They're all caregivers, but they didn't know if they're allowed to call themselves caregivers or they had something else in mind. And that's another conversation.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

I find that fascinating. Sandy, I'm interested in what's around the corner for you. You have so many amazing things on the go, and you're now deeply involved in climate-focused and venture work and greener lab diagnostics.

SPEAKER_04 29:46

Can you help us draw the line as to why that work matters for the future of healthcare?

SPEAKER_03 29:51

Yeah, absolutely. So the reality is what I was finding, and I like and we've talked about love these big, messy problems. And I loved my time in healthcare. It was really fascinating. And I'm also really passionate about the climate. I love the outdoors, love gardening, like all of that sort of nature space. And so what I was really finding was we're only as healthy as our environment. And so, as much as we can continue to work in healthcare, and I have such respect for that entire ecosystem and everybody that's doing that space there, I had the opportunity and a little bit of space to think, what could I do for probably really this kind of last phase of my career? And how can I take all of that knowledge and that skill set and really put it towards something? And the reality is that climate is gonna take a massive change. It's gonna take us thinking differently. It's the ultimate change management transformation work that we can do.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Ultimate messy.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

Ultimate messy, right? A lot of different people involved, a lot of really established systems that incentivize the opposite, right? So really we're incentivized often to do things at scale that maybe that are short-term gain, but don't have really the best long-term implications for the planet. And so there's a lot of opportunity to take some of those skill sets around how do we get people to understand their biases, understand their decision making, make change at scale, help people to understand how do we move into doing things differently and how do we incentivize people that really set up the system to do things differently. And so there was a huge opportunity to lean into that and say, what could that potentially look like? And so it led to the opportunity to found BioCERN, so to help leaders to understand themselves a little bit better and understand how they're making decisions, help them set up those decisions across industry. So now I work with pharma, but I also work with people in the climate space from everything from founders through to venture capital. And then ultimately just help people to understand themselves better. Change begins with a few dedicated people that want to do something different and have some really great ideas and are working hard to make it happen. So the more that I can support them, the better. I love that. Speaking of change, although that's an interesting one, things grow in the garden. And I know that you have a passion for this area. Tell us a little bit about what's around the corner of the gardening space for you and how you tie this together in your life to relax, recharge, rejuvenate, grow, and change. I think it's the a nice segue to caregiving too. I love to also look after things. So, you know, left to my own devices, I would have many, many animals and plants to look after. And so I'm always looking in that section at like Canadian Tire where they have the Az is plants that need a good home. Oh wow. Literally, sometimes the nice staff will put like, these need a good home. So it's like the self-help section in a bookstore. Oh, it gets me every time. Help section.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Those might have been my plans that I brought back there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:57

Right. So Brian like drops his plants off and then yeah. So no, I'm not. And I think it's such a hopeful sign too. Like I planted the bulbs this fall. Actually, they're already up a little bit. So hopefully they're fine because they're a little early. But I think there's such a nice synergy there with taking care of something else and understanding the system too, right? Seeing how like the birds and the plants interact and like how might we and how can we help? And how can we lean in and with a light footprint but a positive impact make a difference on this system? And I know the garden would be fine without me, but I also like to hope that you know, me and a little bit of intervention here and there in the right spots. Dandy, would the garden be good without you? How did you come to that conclusion? I'm sure it would be fine. Nature finds a way. It might not be like organized and there might be lots of meads. I'm sure it would still be nature. It would be thriving, just checking. I think it's much better with you. Thank you for this fabulous conversation today. Oh, thank you. Big messy problems over to career, over to caregiving rather, uh, in a remote situation in healthcare and continue your career looking at big messy problems in different ways with the environment and the climate. Brent, what are some of your thoughts about today's conversation?

SPEAKER_00 34:11

Really enjoyed the conversation, Sandy. Thank you so much. And uh you made me think differently about a number of things just through the conversation around how we often just the normal construct of how we think of things and some things we put on autopilot and some things that are you like those snap decisions or uh shortcuts that sort of just challenging those constructs, and that's often a way to start in managing some of the messy situations that we find ourselves in. They're busy messy situations we find ourselves in, but thank you very much for the conversation. Really enjoyed it, and Ursula always enjoy the back and forth with you.

SPEAKER_04 34:45

Love it, Brent. More time together soon. Thank you so much, Sandy, for your time today, and thanks for this lovely conversation.

SPEAKER_03 34:52

Thanks for having me. It was my pleasure again. Thank you so much to both of you for all you do. I think it's making a tremendous difference.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

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SPEAKER_00 35:15

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SPEAKER_02 35:26

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SPEAKER_00 35:40

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SPEAKER_02 35:46

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