Hanna B. Sherman., MD, FAAP, is an organizational consultant and educator who works with organizations and leaders to foster authenticity and service in work. She helps leaders integrate insights from diverse wisdom traditions with their own inner truths, leading to deeper understandings of professionalism, leadership, and organizational change. Hanna joined Relationship Centered Health Care in January 2007 to add her efforts to relationship-centered culture change in healthcare. In 2008 she joined Penny Williamson in co-leading Courage to Lead. Hanna is a member of the founding cohorts of cross-professional facilitator training with Parker Palmer and the Center for Courage and Renewal, and of the healthcare leadership institute Leading Organizations to Health. She serves as course director on professional renewal for the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare and chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics’ special interest group on physician wellness.
Hanna received her medical degree at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and completed her internship and residency at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Her central focus on professional identity and integrity grew out of her direct observations of burnout among professionals and leaders in the course of her work as a practicing pediatrician, medical director of the Boston Children’s Hospital’s telephone care center, and committee leader in the American Academy of Pediatrics. She makes extensive use of reflective practice to help professionals approach their work with greater insight, integration, and sustainability. In 2005 she developed a curriculum for medical students on mindfulness, self awareness, and relational capacity as part of a research study at Harvard Medical School on professional formation. She speaks and writes regularly on leadership development, professionalism, and humanism in medicine, contributed an essay to the award-winning book, Leading From Within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead (Sam Intrator and Megan Scribner, Eds), and is spearheading the development of a national policy on physician health and well-being for the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Hanna is married to Daniel Sheff, MD, an internist-rheumatologist and spiritual leader. They are graced with three daughters, Rebecca, Jocelyn, and Naomi, who bring them much joy as they emerge into their own lives. She enjoys travel and hiking, art, and learning about diverse cultures, and is committed to improving the well-being and sustainability of physicians and health workers in developing countries.