ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Peter Lazes, PhD, a clinical and industrial psychologist, was the founder and former director of Programs for Employment and Workplace Systems and of the Healthcare Transformation Project, both at Cornell University. He has been an educator, researcher, and practitioner for more than 40 years, dedicated to designing systems in which the knowledge and experience of frontline staff are used to improve patient care and save jobs of American workers. He has written more than 50 articles on engaging frontline staff to improve the effectiveness of their organizations, on leadership, on innovative strategies for improving patient care, and on the importance of meaningful work. He lives with his wife and co-author, Dr. Marie Rudden, in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Dr. Lazes received his BA from Goddard College in Psychology, received an MA in Human Relations from New York University, and a PhD in Clinical and Industrial Psychology from Union Institute and University.
Marie Rudden, MD, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is an associate editor for the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies and on the North American Editorial Board of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. A clinical assistant professor in psychiatry at Weill Cornell School of Medicine, she has published widely on panic disorder, depression, leadership in the face of group impasses, and on change processes in psychotherapy.
Dr. Rudden graduated from Yale College with a degree in Intensive Anthropology. She was among the first group of women accepted at the college (1969-1973.) She graduated from the New York University School of Medicine in 1977 and did her internship in medicine, neurology and pediatrics and her residency in psychiatry at Cornell-Weill Medical School and New York Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Rudden also graduated from the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in 1994 and has been a practicing psychoanalyst as well as a psychiatrist since then. She enjoyed learning in a variety of medical settings, from a summer at the Hospital Buena Samaritana in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico to another summer at the Gallup Indian Medical Center in Gallup, New Mexico. From 2001 to 2020, she worked in private practice in West Stockbridge, MA, where she has treated many nurses and physicians, among other patients. Her experience treating health care professionals and her own experience as a physician have informed this book, as has her expertise on resolving group impasses.
