The School of Cognitive Oxygen
Most leadership advice assumes the problem is what you do. This is about something quieter and more dangerous: what happens to how you think when the pressure will not let up.
I am Dr Toomas Särev, a consultant cardiologist who spent two decades making decisions where the cost of getting it wrong was measured in lives. I now work with senior clinicians and healthcare leaders on the thing no one trains them for: staying clear, humane, and honest when the day is relentless.
This is the home of Cognitive Oxygen® (COx), a practical discipline for protecting the conditions that wise action depends on. The idea is simple. Under enough pressure, judgement thins before anyone notices. Teams stop saying the true thing. Leaders reach for certainty when what they need is clarity. Clear thinking is a safety issue, not a soft skill.
What you will find here
The why and the what. The stories, the patterns, and the language for naming what is happening to you and your team before it costs you. A weekly essay. Conversations with my co-host Dr Sarah Flindall, in audio. The relational lens of Unlearning the Armour, written with the nurse Claire Ayres. And the odd sharp question in between, the kind that follows you into the corridor.
The how lives in the room
Foundations of Success for Healthcare, Red Team Thinking® for clinical teams, coaching, and the practices themselves are tools in the same knife. If the writing helps you see the problem clearly, the work is where we fix it together.
Subscribe for free. Read until something lands. Then we talk.
