We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dr. Jenny Shields. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dr. Jenny below.
Hi Dr. Jenny, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
My purpose wasn’t a discovery; it was a detonation. It was forged in the fire of a single sentence—an act of professional conscience that made me publicly known for choosing integrity over institutional silence. That choice cost me everything and, in doing so, gave me the one thing I couldn’t lose: a reason to fight.
For years, my career was built on institutional trust. I’d climbed the ladder quickly, steadily. As the regional director of ethics at a large faith-based hospital, I was required to testify in the case of a woman whose lung cancer diagnosis was not shared with her for 532 days. I said the quiet part out loud: patients can’t choose to treat their cancer if they aren’t aware it exists.
In the moment, the statement felt completely reasonable—almost self-evident. In practice, ethical transparency proved incompatible with the institution’s liability posture.
That sentence ended my career as I knew it. In the 72 hours before my deposition, I was “strongly encouraged” to adopt less incendiary language and warned of “career consequences.” I was even reminded the hospital’s parent organization wasn’t required to follow certain laws due to its Catholic healthcare affiliation, just in case I was feeling litigious. I pictured every graduate-school lecture on moral courage and realized: this was the final exam. So I submitted an affidavit correcting the misrepresentations and gave the deposition. It was the most honest hour of my career, and, as it turns out, the most expensive.
From there, the retaliation unfolded in slow motion, like watching your own car slide off an icy bridge. Projects vanished. Performance reviews went from “stellar” to “under scrutiny.” My once open door became a gossip checkpoint. Risk Management dug through my personnel file; HR “lost” my ADA paperwork twice. Leadership suggested I might be “happier elsewhere.” By month three, I was vomiting before staff meetings and logging nightmares. When my badge finally deactivated and the health insurance evaporated, it felt less like a firing and more like the last page of a choose-your-own-adventure book everyone else had already read.
Integrity cost me a salary, but complicity would have cost my soul, and that invoice has no payment plan. Then, what little stability we had shattered. A prestigious job offer fell through after we’d already moved out of state, away from our entire social support network. We found ourselves stranded with two toddlers, tens of thousands in debt, and no safety net. Days later, a summer virus swept through our house. The kids and I bounced back. My husband, Marcus, didn’t.
By early June 2024, his face was swollen, his thinking scrambled. The ER triaged him to the “mental-health side” with orders to drive himself to another facility. Twelve hours later, I rushed him back: multifocal pneumonia, severe sepsis, metabolic encephalopathy. A CT scan lit up “innumerable” nodules in his left lung; a CT-guided biopsy was ordered.
We were trying to rebuild, believing the worst was behind us. Then the universe delivered its cruelest lesson.
In a devastating twist, Marcus (previously completely healthy) was diagnosed with an incredibly rare Stage IV neuroendocrine lung cancer. And in a horrifying echo, the hospital we turned to for his care delayed communicating his biopsy results. The systemic failure I once testified against had followed us into our most personal nightmare.
For months, I had tried to salvage a private life, revising résumés, even considering polite NDAs. But after Marcus’s diagnosis and a second hospital’s silence, the truth was unavoidable:
Secrecy is fatal.
My professional identity—Director this, Doctor that—had already buckled under layoffs, lawsuits, and a mortgage reset to thirty years. The titles I once polished for confidence now sounded hollow, like trophies from a sport I no longer played. Stripped of status, I found an unexpected liberty. When the ladder disappears, you stop contorting to stay on it.
So we went public, because there was no other honest path left. We shared the biopsy dates, the bills, the insurance loss, and asked for help. Stripped of titles, I found something sturdier than accolades: community, candor, and a mission that doesn’t depend on institutional permission.
The most brutal revelation wasn’t the lawsuit or the cancer. It was watching a risk management team weaponize my own paperwork. A glowing evaluation became “evidence of overreach.” A stress leave became “emotional instability.” Honesty itself was recoded as a threat vector.
That maneuver doesn’t just end careers; it siphons something wordless from your soul. You begin editing your sentences in real time, second-guessing what you see. By the time you realize the psychic cost of that self-censoring, you’re already paying compound interest in insomnia, anxiety, and a quiet dread of Monday mornings.
That’s when my purpose became undeniable.
It was born from the realization that silence kills, whether at a bedside or in a boardroom. It was forged in the humility of launching a public advocacy campaign that drew national attention, raised over $118,000 from nearly 600 strangers, and helped ignite a broader conversation on institutional accountability.
Today, my purpose isn’t an academic principle. It’s a vocation rooted in truth-telling, proximity, and public service.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
My work today is a direct extension of my story. As a psychologist and ethicist, I’ve learned no credential, policy, or protocol will ever teach you what one honest story can. My professional focus is on helping other professionals—in healthcare, law, tech, and leadership—navigate the immense pressures of systems that often demand silence in the face of harm
That focus has been sharpened by experience. It’s centered on fostering the very moral courage I was called to demonstrate. Stripped of status, I found an unexpected liberty: when the ladder disappears, you stop contorting yourself to stay on it. That freedom is the bedrock of my advocacy. Through writing, speaking, and consultation, I work to create psychologically safe spaces for professionals to speak their truth and equip them with tools to address moral injury, burnout, and institutional retaliation. It’s a mission to remind institutions that their greatest asset isn’t their balance sheet, but the integrity of their people.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I found my professional philosophy not in success, but in collapse. These three enduring lessons emerged from the wreckage of my career and my life.
1. Tell the truth, consequences be damned. This isn’t just a professional guideline; it’s part of the ethics of staying human. I learned that the cost of complicity—the slow erosion of your soul—is infinitely higher than the cost of retaliation. Developing this means practicing it daily, choosing honesty over comfort, and accepting that the consequences are secondary to the act of maintaining your integrity. I believe it was Dante who remarked that, “the hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.”
2. Find your vocation at the intersection of your rage and your joy. My work has become fueled by a deep anger at systemic injustice and the preventable suffering it causes. But it is sustained by the profound joy I find in connecting with others, sharing our stories, and fighting for something better. If you are early in your journey, pay attention to what makes you angry—it’s a powerful clue to what you are meant to change. Then, find a way to channel that fire into an act of service that brings you (and others) alive.
3. Stay proximate to the people you serve. The most critical knowledge I’ve gained came not from a textbook, but from sitting with my husband in an oncology ward, from reading the messages of hundreds of strangers who shared their own pain, and from facing the fear of a system that failed us. My advice is simple: you have two ears and one mouth. Listen more than you talk. Let the stories of others dismantle your assumptions. Proximity is the antidote to abstraction, and it is the most likely path to meaningful work.
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
When institutions with billion-dollar budgets and marble lobbies abandoned us, hope became a group project. It was 593 strangers who showed me that true resilience is built by community.
They taught me that hope isn’t a naive feeling; it’s a group project. More than that, it’s an act of protest. See, when systems are designed to crush dissent and maintain control, cultivating hope becomes a radical act. It’s a defiant stand against the forces that try to diminish our spirit, silence our voices, and tell us that change is impossible. As Raymond Williams wrote, “To be truly radical is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing.”
The support of our newfound community wasn’t just financial; it was a powerful affirmation that integrity still matters and that human decency can be a force more powerful than any corporate policy or legal loophole. A former patient’s family member donated in honor of her father. A friend flew across an ocean just to sit with us. A family sent dinner every Tuesday night. These quiet, consistent acts of love taught me more about resilience and generosity than any textbook ever could. They showed me that true success isn’t found on a corporate ladder, but in the community you build and that, in turn, builds you.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://drjennyshields.com/
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- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@drjennyshields
- Other: Medium: https://drjennyshields.medium.com/
Our Original Campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-shields-strong
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