I’m a Clinical Psychologist and have been a member of the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) Clinical Ethics Committee for the last 9 years. My clinical background is primarily in Paediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care (P/NICU) and Palliative Care. Since December 2023 I’ve been working in a Hub Neonatal Psychology role across North Central and East London, helping Neonatal units to embed Trauma Informed Care and to become Psychologically Informed Environments. I still work at Great Ormond Street Hospital one day a week.
All my clinical roles have involved offering staff support, teaching and training to my MDT colleagues. This is in the context of moral injury, burnout, and the impact of traumatic events on staff groups.
I greatly enjoy being a member of the GOSH ethics committee. I’m passionate about bringing a psychosocial perspective to ethical discussions, ensuring that we consider the holistic perspective whilst also exploring the impact of ethical decision making and modern medicine on both families and staff.
Dr Wendy Dean, MD
Cofounder and CEO FixMoralinjury.org
Dr. Dean practiced as a psychiatrist for a decade, worked in medical product development for the Department of Defense, and then as an executive for a half-billion dollar non-profit.
Since 2019, she has focused solely on reducing workforce distress.
Dr. Dean left clinical medicine when generating revenue crowded out the patient-centered priorities of her practice. Her focus since has been on finding innovative ways to make medicine better for both patients and physicians through technology, ethics, and systems change.
Dr. Dean practiced for 15 years as an emergency room physician and then as a psychiatrist. After leaving clinical practice, she spent eight years in leadership positions, overseeing medical research funding for the U.S. Army, and as a senior executive at a large nonprofit in Washington, D.C., supporting novel strategies to restore form, function and appearance to ill and injured service members. She turned her full attention to addressing moral injury in 2019.
Dr. Dean is a regular contributor to Medscape’s Business of Medicine, blogs on Psychology Today, and continues to work in innovative fields with NASA, the American Society of Reconstructive Transplantation, and the Transplant Ethics and Policy Working Group at New York University Langone Medical Center.
Recent publications
Publications — Fix Moral Injury
Co-Author
If I Betray These Words : Moral Injury in Medicine and Why It’s So Hard for Clinicians to Put Patients First
Wendy Dean, MD & Simon Talbot MD
". . . a critical read for all in healthcare." - Lydia Dugdale, MD, author of The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom, and Director of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at Columbia University
"Wendy Dean opens the door for the layman to see how physically taxing and mentally draining the practice of medicine can be, while allowing physician readers to recognize themselves in the scenarios she depicts." - Joseph Caravalho, Jr., MD, Major General, US Army (Retired), and President and CEO of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine
"A brilliantly conceived and executed masterpiece." - Thom Mayer, MD, Medical Director of the NFL Players Association
"An important call to action." - Booklist
"Required reading for all in healthcare." - Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error
Dr Deborah Morris (Scientific Committee and Co-Chair) Director, Centre for Developmental and Complex Trauma, UK Director of Postgraduate programmes in trauma, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Buckingham Deborah is the director for the Centre for Developmental and Complex Trauma and the Director of Post graduate programmes in trauma, University of Buckingham.
A Consultant Clinical Psychologist by training, Deborah has worked clinically with adults with complex personality disorder, neurodevelopmental, forensic and mental health needs in the community, assertive outreach, crisis, residential, prison and inpatient settings.
Deborah has previously worked in professional and clinical lead positions and in services to support the mental health and trauma needs of healthcare professionals. Her publications and ongoing research interests include; occupational distress and trauma, treatments for personality disorder, intellectual disabilities, developmental trauma disorders, the intersection between trauma and personality disorder, moral injury, gendered approaches to trauma, adverse childhood experiences, the physical health impact of trauma, and the psychometric properties of psychological tools. In her spare time Deborah indulges her obsessions with Star Wars, scuba diving with sharks and her typically unsuccessful attempts to establish an organic allotment. She is an avid cook and enthusiastically avoids gyms and all forms of organised fitness.
Acute, PICU and Rapid Response
