Susan Abookire, BSEE, MD, MPH, FACP, is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and a senior executive with 20 years’ experience leading healthcare organizations. She has served as Chief Medical Officer, System Chief Quality Officer, and Chair of the Department of Quality and Patient Safety at Mount Auburn Hospital, a Harvard teaching hospital, where she founded the department of Quality and Patient Safety and led the award-winning program for a decade.
Dr. Abookire began her career as an electrical engineer in aviation systems. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Dr. Abookire trained at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and continues to practice Internal Medicine.
Dr. Abookire received a master’s degree from the Harvard School of Public Health and has taught nationally and internationally on patient safety, health technology, human factors, high reliability, systems design, adverse event learning systems, and applying aviation lessons. A trained Medical Educator, Dr. Abookire co-founded the Harvard Medical School Fellowship in Quality and Patient Safety and has developed several curricula for physicians and healthcare leaders.
Dr. Abookire is certified Forest Therapy Guide. She offers Forest Therapy to front-line health care workers in Boston, Massachusetts. She has also developed Nature and Systems curricula that incorporate Forest Therapy to support caregiver wellbeing, as well as to teach systems thinking, leadership, and teamwork.