Division of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery Assistant Professor Zain Hashmi, M.D., spoke from his unique perspective as a trauma surgeon and researcher about what acting with integrity looks like for him.
As a recipient of the President’s Award for Excellence in Support of UAB and Shared Governance, Hashmi, along with Vice President for Administration and Chief Risk and Compliance Officer Katie Crenshaw, answered questions during a livestream session hosted by UAB Learning and Development.
The session focused on “act with integrity,” one of the UAB Shared Values (along with “collaborate,” “respect all,” and “excel”).
Below are six takeaways from Hashmi on how anyone and everyone can act with integrity to strengthen teams, guide decision-making, and improve outcomes.
1. Slow down and root yourself in the facts when decision-making.
As a trauma surgeon, Hashmi knows what it’s like to make literal life or death decisions in a fast-paced, high-stress environment. His advice is to take emotion out of the equation and look at the objective evidence.
“We have a dictum in surgery: ‘fast is slow, slow is smooth, smooth is fast,’” Hashmi said. “If you slow down and be deliberate at critical junctures of an operation, it will help safely complete the task at hand.”
2. Remember those who can be helped or harmed by your actions.
Hashmi says his work beyond the operating room has shaped his understanding of integrity. His efforts in establishing teletrauma care at rural and resource-limited hospitals in Alabama, and his research on trauma systems with the UAB Center for Injury Science, forces him to think about how his actions can ripple through communities – and generations.
“When you think about building systems of care and conducting research, those things live in posterity,” Hashmi said. “You have to think about how generations of people might benefit.”
3. Cultivate psychological safety in your team.
“Psychological safety” can be defined as an environment characterized by interpersonal trust and mutual respect, where a team feels safe to bring up ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes without fear of embarrassment, rejection, or punishment. Hashmi says cultivating psychological safety goes a long way in ensuring team integrity and creating a culture “where people can freely express their opinion without concerns of ego or hierarchy.”
“When we have a shared value of putting forth the challenges we face, that anchors us in a unity of purpose and promotes dialogue,” Hashmi said. “A lot of hard things can be made easy with dialogue.”
4. Make time for self-reflection.
Hashmi’s recommendations for others to develop a life of integrity include a habit of self-reflection while minimizing distractions ((he recommended Cal Newport’s books “Deep Work” and “Digital Minimalism” for the latter)
“The best way to prepare for the future is by looking at what has happened in the past,” Hashmi said. “With deliberate, quiet moments of reflection, you can learn a lot.”
5. Be disciplined.
Acting with integrity doesn’t manifest only in the big, public victories in life, but also in the daily behaviors built through discipline, Hashmi says. That’s why integrity is connected to the other UAB shared values: if you’re not acting with integrity, you’re probably not excelling or respecting those around you either.
“When you foster integrity, it shines through every aspect of what you do in your daily life,” he said.
6. Trust your inner barometer.
Hashmi says acting with integrity often means deciding on the harder of two choices.
“When in doubt, our conscience will always tell us what to do,” Hashmi said. “Trust your internal barometer.”