What trauma surgery taught me about building trust during a crisis | Alex Jahangir | TEDxNashville

Everyday, as an orthopedic trauma surgeon, Dr. Alex Jahangir meets people having the worst day of their lives. As the head of Nashville's covid task force, he led an entire community of people experiencing trauma. In this talk, Alex tells us why the first step as a leader during any kind of crisis is building trust, and how to do it. Dr. Alex Jahangir is an orthopaedic trauma surgeon and a professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Medicine, and Health Policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is vice-chair of orthopaedic surgery and director of the division of orthopaedic trauma, as well as, the executive medical director of the Vanderbilt Trauma, Burn, and Emergency Surgery Patient Care Center.

Alex was appointed to the Nashville Metropolitan Board of Health in 2017 and served two terms as chair. In March 2020, he was named chair of the Nashville Covid-19 Taskforce by Mayor John Cooper. In this capacity, Alex led the response to the Covid-19 pandemic for Nashville including the development and implementation of policies that mitigated the spread of the virus, increased access to testing and assessment for all in the community, established a robust public health infrastructure, and served as a principal source of information to the public regarding the Covid-19 pandemic in Nashville. He served as head of the Task Force for the entire two years of the Task Force’s existence. Alex Jahangir was born in Tehran, Iran in 1978, six months before the Iranian revolution overthrew the Shah and installed the Islamic republic. Growing up in Iran, Alex’s first memories were of a war torn country that was filled with air raid sirens and his mom taking him and his younger brother to shelter when fighter jets flew overhead because of the 8 year Iran-Iraq war. In 1984 Alex’s parents, desiring a more secure and safe future for Alex and his brother, made the decision to give up the life they knew and immigrate to the United States. They decided to move to Nashville, Tennessee, the city where Alex graduated high school and returned to after finishing his medical training.

Alex lives in Nashville with his wife Helen, a speech-language pathologist, and their three daughters. His upcoming book, Hot Spot: A Doctor’s Diary From the Pandemic, chronicling his and the Nashville COVID-19 Task Force’s efforts to protect the city and its people throughout the pandemic is scheduled for publication by Vanderbilt University Press in Fall of 2022. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx