Town Halls
About Town Halls
Town Halls are a chance for our community to gather to have our creative spirit sparked by hearing about ideas and programs relevant to the movement for care as well as spending time in small discussion with each other to share experiences and thoughts.
Town Halls are always recorded and available for you to watch if you can’t join us live.
Next Town Hall
May 22, 2025 | 10 AM ET/ 9 AM CT
Notice and Respond: How to advance careful and kind care in the era of industrialization and AI
This Town Hall is a collaboration of The Patient Revolution and hte Knowledge and Evaluation (KER) Unit at Mayo Clinic.
For decades, while healthcare focused on industrial concepts like efficiency and throughput, care - something that only happens between people - was left unattended. Now, in the face of increased focus on AI and automation, the need to draw attention to, preserve, and support care is more necessary than ever.
In her book The Last Human Job, Allison Pugh identifies "connective labor" as an unacknowledged and underappreciated component of care work across fields such as healthcare and education. In this Town Hall event, members of Mayo Clinic's Knowledge and Evaluation Research (KER) Unit and TPR's Fellows community will lead a discussion and action planning session that asks what does advocacy for care look like - as patients, clinicians, researchers, and the public? What must we do to center human connection and relationships in our healthcare experiences?
About Allison Pugh
Allison Pugh is Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University and the 2024-5 Vice President of the American Sociological Association. Her fourth book The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World (Princeton 2024) analyzes work that relies on relationship, arguing that “connective labor” is meaningful and important, yet under siege by data analytics and under threat from automation and AI. The book has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, Science, and Hidden Brain, and named on “best of” lists by Nature, Public Books, and the New Scientist. Pugh’s research and teaching focus on how powerful economic trends from job insecurity to automation shape the way people find meaning, dignity and connection at work and at home. She has given more than 100 invited talks, and her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Pugh has been a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Berggruen Institute, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and a visiting scholar in Germany, France and Australia. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, Time and other outlets.
About the KER Unit
The Knowledge and Evaluation Research (KER) Unit has a home at Mayo Clinic and collaborators and partners across the globe. Investigators at the KER Unit conduct research that ultimately seeks to help patients receive the care that each one needs and that fits them. They conduct projects in the real worlds of clinical care and of living, struggling, and thriving with medical conditions.
