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Dr Gaurish Chawla

Dr Gaurish Chawla (MBBS MSc PhD PGCHE FHEA)

Associate Professor (Healthcare Leadership and Commissioning)
E: G.Chawla@bsms.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)1273 641590
Location: Room 342 Watson Building, University of Brighton, Falmer, BN1 9PH

Area of expertise: Leadership and Commissioning, Medical Education

Research areas: Medical Education, Leadership in the NHS, Work culture of Healthcare

Preferred gender pronouns: He/him

LinkedIn profile: linkedin.com/gaurish-chawla

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Biography

Gaurish is an Associate Professor in Healthcare Leadership and Commissioning at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS). His academic work is rooted in a longstanding commitment to understanding and transforming the cultural, structural, and organisational forces that shape healthcare. Beginning his career as an associate of the NHS Leadership Academy for the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson programme at the University of Manchester, he developed a deep appreciation for leadership that is grounded in practice, informed by evidence, and attentive to issues of inequality.

Since joining BSMS in 2018, he has contributed extensively to curriculum development, pedagogical innovation, and the strengthening of leadership education for multidisciplinary healthcare professionals. At BSMS, he teaches 60–80 students per year on his postgraduate module and contributes on an ad hoc basis to several other modules. Many of his former students have gone on to become senior leaders nationally and internationally within healthcare, improving patient outcomes through system redesign and by leading quality improvement and change projects. Since 2025, he has served as Programme Lead for the Healthcare Leadership and Commissioning suite of courses—Postgraduate Certificate (which also underwrites the successful Leadership and Education Fellowship directed by his colleague Sam Greenhouse), Diploma, and Masters programmes.

His work sits at the intersection of healthcare culture, critical management studies, equity, and wellbeing. He is particularly interested in how systemic inequalities manifest in professional settings, and in how thoughtful leadership can engineer meaningful and sustained cultural change.

Research

His scholarship spans critical management studies, healthcare culture, decolonising medical education, arts-based methods, organisational behaviour, and leadership. He values interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly work that integrates creative and arts-based practices into healthcare education. He is currently co-editing the first edition of a book with Taylor & Francis focused on inclusion in medical education.

His forthcoming participatory action research project, The Family Members of Our Healthcare Heroes, explores the overlooked emotional labour and lived experiences of families who support healthcare professionals. This project reflects his commitment to uncovering stories that often remain invisible, yet are essential to understanding the wider ecology of healthcare work.

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Teaching

His teaching has consistently been rated highly by medical registrars, nurses, consultants, international healthcare leaders, and multidisciplinary, multiprofessional students. He teaches leadership, organisational culture, and change management, among other subjects, bringing critical theory into dialogue with real-world case studies and applied practice. He is co-lead for the highly successful module in Leadership and Change Management and contributes to a range of other modules, including Medical Education (BSMS) and Qualitative Research (University of Brighton).

He is an experienced supervisor of Master’s-level dissertation work, with several of his students having presented their dissertations at reputable academic conferences.

Publications

Forthcoming in 2026

Rewilding: From Ecological to Epistemic – Invited lecture, British Psychological Society (2026)

Rewilding Higher Education – Special Event at the British Sociology of Education Annual Conference (2026)

Principal Investigator, The Family Members of Our Healthcare Heroes – Participatory action research funded by the Centre for Arts and Well Being

2023-25

Aimee Holland, Caroline Hopper, Gaurish Chawla, Dr Siobhan Macauley (December 2025). An exploration of organisational and interpersonal factors that impact patient safety in general practice: a systematic review. Poster presented at the biannual DEMEC Conference, Birmingham, UK

Lauren Hardie-Bick, Gaurish Chawla, Patrick Nyikavaranda (2025). Engaging undergraduate medical students in learning about medical professionalism and systemic racism. Conference presentation at Behaviour and Social Sciences Teaching in Medicine, Edinburgh, UK.

Chawla G. Centre for Arts and Wellbeing. 2025. Rewilding in; and of Higher Education: Visit to Knepp | Centre for Arts and Wellbeing. Available from: https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/artswellbeing/2025/08/13/rewilding-in-and-of-higher-education-visit-to-knepp/

Integration of scenario-based video resources into teaching sessions to enable students recognise and navigate inappropriate behaviours. Conference Presentation (Short Communication), International Association of Health Professionals Education Annual Meeting (formerly AMEE) 2024. Nariell Morrison, Lauren Hardie-Bick, Olutunmise Ashaye, Gaurish Chawla, Chioma Izzi-Engbeaya, Amir H Sam.

Al-Jawad, M., Chawla, G., Singh, N., 2024. Creating comics, songs and poems to make sense of decolonising the curriculum: a collaborative autoethnography patchwork. Med Humanit 50, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2023-012660

Contribution to the Green Surgery Report (2024) available here: https://s41874.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Green-Surgery-Report-v1.1.pdf

Chawla, G., McKnight, U., Mezuk, B., & Sabado-Liwag, M. (2024). Equity and antiracism: A panel on bridging theory to practice across academia and healthcare, a panel moderated by Yvette Szabo, PhD on behalf of the Antiracism Task Force, at the annual meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society, Brighton, UK.

Chawla, G. (2023). Conference workshop. Arts Based Methods in Medical Education. Academy of Medical Educators Annual Meeting, Cardiff.

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