Yale Child Study Center Grand Rounds—On Leadership

Session description

Susan L. Prescott, MD, PhD, will discuss human and planetary health and how related crises are often approached as technical, environmental, or policy problems. She will explore a deeper relational challenge beneath them, which she describes as the erosion of connection within ourselves, between people and communities, and with the natural systems that sustain life. She will also address how early experiences shape the relational intelligence, creativity, empathy, and moral imagination needed for cooperation and leadership later in life.

Learning objectives

The goal of this session is to enable participants to:

1. Explain how contemporary health, social, and ecological challenges can be understood as interconnected expressions of relational disruption across biological, developmental, cultural, and planetary scales.
2. Describe how early experiences and environments shape the relational, emotional, and imaginative capacities needed for cooperation, ethical responsibility, and transformative leadership.
3. Identify ways that whole-person leadership, creativity, narrative, and experiential connection can contribute to cultural and systemic transformation toward human and planetary flourishing.

This session is part of the 2026-2027 YCSC grand rounds special lecture series "On Leadership" and was planned in collaboration with Yale School of Nursing’s Office of Planetary Health & Global Engagement. The goal of the special leadership-focused lecture series is to provide an open forum with leaders who are committed to principles of collaboration and service at Yale School of Medicine and beyond.

YCSC grand rounds sessions are typically presented in the Cohen Auditorium at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesdays from September through June, with a live stream available via Zoom. Internal participants are encouraged to attend sessions in person​​​​​. Most recordings are posted internally via YCSC Internal Announcements on SharePoint within a few days, and select session recordings are available on the YCSC grand rounds website. Compassionate Care and Health Equity Rounds are not recorded to maintain confidentiality.