From Loss to Leadership: How Grief Redefined One Health Care Strategist’s Approach to Compassion
A health care leader shares her deeply personal story of loss and how navigating unimaginable grief transformed her leadership style, advocating for a more empathetic and vulnerable approach within the industry.
The health care system often struggles to address the profound emotional toll experienced by both patients and providers. For Dana Y. Lujan, a health care strategist, this realization wasn’t theoretical – it was born from the devastating loss of her son’s father and, six years later, her only son, Joey. Her journey, detailed in a recent article for KevinMD, reveals how these experiences exposed critical failures in a system often ill-equipped to handle pain that defies diagnostic codes.
Lujan’s leadership foundation, initially forged in the stoic environment of the 1990s military, emphasized resilience through compartmentalization. “You always have this armor on, always push through, ‘Suck it up and drive on, soldier,’” she recalls. This approach carried over into her civilian career, where she initially focused on maintaining a professional facade while privately grappling with grief after the loss of her son’s father. However, the subsequent loss of her son shattered that carefully constructed armor.
“When you are hit with another loss, your child, your only child, that is a moment where it really strips you down of everything you knew,” Lujan explained. “Your whole identity is stripped away. Who are you, and how do you climb out of that?”
The support she received varied. Following her first loss, she leaned heavily on her partner’s family and friends. However, the grief following her son’s death proved isolating. She found that many struggled to understand the depth of her pain, and she experienced a sense of shame and guilt. Surprisingly, it was her son’s young adult friends who provided the most consistent support during this period.
Lujan’s experience with the health care system itself was disheartening. She recounts a suggestion for a 72-hour psychiatric hold and the application of labels like “complicated grief” and “PTSD,” but felt a profound lack of genuine understanding. This disconnect fueled her conviction that compassion and resilience in health care leadership must be redefined.
She discovered that true healing wasn’t about relentlessly “pushing through,” but about surrendering to growth. A turning point came when her therapist advised her to focus on completing just three small tasks each day. Initially hesitant, Lujan found that even a simple act like walking her dogs provided a crucial anchor. “I truly believe that decision of me having to get up and make sure my dogs got walked helped me along the road,” she stated.
This experience fundamentally altered her leadership style. Lujan now prioritizes presence and active listening, noticing subtle cues that indicate an employee’s distress. “I am more in the present,” she notes. “If I had an employee come in or call me, I was trying to say yes, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking: ‘OK, I have this errand to go do. I have this deadline.’ Now I am more or less like: ‘OK, everything can park it. You have my undivided attention and what is needed from you.’”
Lujan emphasizes the power of vulnerability, a trait often discouraged in the traditionally stoic world of health care. She found that openly acknowledging her own struggles fostered deeper connections and encouraged others to seek support. “When you start asking for help or for a different perspective, people are more inclined to help you out,” she explained. “That is a really healing moment because we can hide behind our screens and think we are doing everyone justice by holding everything in.”
For other health care workers navigating unimaginable grief, Lujan offers a simple but powerful message: “This is just a chapter in your life, and you just have to go through the uncomfortable. It is going to be a tremendous growth. Every day, choose life.”
Ultimately, Lujan’s journey underscores a critical lesson for health care leaders: growth emerges not from comfort, but from confronting pain and embracing vulnerability. As she powerfully states, “You don’t grow where you are comfortable. You grow when you decide to face what hurts, sit in it, and still believe something better is coming.”
