National Health Fellows Program
Sean led senior health leaders in the National Health Fellows program in creating a Charter, sacred artifact, and commitments to guide Fellows and the program. The Charter, which articulates our collective interdependence, serves as a foundational tide for learning from Indigenous ways of knowing and doing to correct the disconnect that keeps us from lifting all boats.
Health Design Fiction
Health Design Fiction is a card-based activity that invites healthcare learners to imagine future scenarios and artifacts. We explore how playful, creative tools can build futures literacy, evoke emotional reflection, and support more expansive ways of thinking about complexity, care, and what comes next.
Complexity and Health
Sean is a co-instructor and collaborator with Dr. William Sutherland, founder of Complexity Medicine, offering a compelling introduction to complexity thinking through the lens of health and healing. This undergraduate course at McMaster University, blends seminars and workshops, participants will engage with models and metaphors of complexity to examine the nature of healthy systems—including those in healthcare. Through a mix of didactics, dialogue, and reflective inquiry, they explore foundational questions such as: What is Health? What is Life? What is Mind? What is Sacred?
As McMaster University moved towards in-person work following the closures of the pandemic, Sean guided the Faculty of Health Sciences in 2022 through a six-month foresight process that culminated in priority themes, personas, a retreat, and imaginative ‘job ads from the future’. A faculty-wide process for sharing stories from staff and faculty combined with signal scanning and trend research resulted in a set of needs related to collaboration, work-life balance, equity, career advancement, space, and productivity. Senior leaders from across the faculty worked together to make sense of the data through the lens of different staff and faculty personas and then reimagined what work might look like in the near future for various roles in light of AI, the struggle for a just and equitable world, and climate change.
Future of Work – Faculty of Health Sciences Senior Leaders Retreat
HiFi Leadership Program
Imagine doing for leadership education what mannikins and simulation have done for medical education. Using scenarios and actors that brought to life the human resources, finance, and strategy challenges faced by leaders in academic health science centres, Sean worked with Dr. Teresa Chan and the McMaster Health leadership Academy to create a 9-month sandbox for developing leadership know-how.
Design Thinking and Strategic Foresight at McMaster University
Building Innovation Capability with the Toronto District School Board
