You can care deeply
without losing yourself.
MARCUS GREATHEART MD MSW
Physician, Social Worker, Facilitator
I help healthcare teams, educators and community organizations who support people facing addiction, homelessness and mental illness. I deliver keynotes and workshops grounded in a practical frontline framework now captured in my forthcoming book The Field Guide to Staying Human in Frontline Care (Ethica Press, 2026).
Book Marcus to Speak or Facilitate
Inquire about keynotes, workshops, and facilitated sessions for your organization. Please include your role, organization, preferred dates, and what kind of support your team needs.Someone will respond within 2 business days.
About Marcus
Dr. Marcus Greatheart is a physician and social worker who works at the frontlines of medicine, caring for people who are often pushed to the margins. He brings clarity, grounded empathy, and a commitment to justice into every room.Marcus focuses on compassionate, trauma-informed care and system-level change. With experience in clinical care, outreach, and leadership, he helps teams explore how to show up for marginalized people while staying effective and human.
What leaders are saying...“Marcus is a rare kind of speaker—reliable, deeply authentic, and able to connect with people on a profoundly human level. At our conference, his talk stood out as one of those moments that people don’t just hear, they feel. He speaks to what we all need to be reminded of: the power of love, community, and humanity. Marcus doesn’t just share ideas—he leaves you changed.”Dr. Sara Lea, Medical Director, Education, Onboarding and Leadership Development, Island Health
Speaking and Workshops for Real-World Care
Who brings me in
Health systems and primary care networks
Hospitals and inpatient teams
Residency and training programs
Indigenous health gatherings and anti-racism conferences
Community agencies serving people experiencing homelessness and substance useWhat I deliver
Keynotes and workshops that build practical communication, trust-building and leadership skills for teams working with addiction, homelessness, and mental illness.Keynotes
High-impact sessions that reframe how teams think about accountability, compassion and culture in real clinical rooms.Workshops
Practical, skills-based training. Teams leave with language they can use on their next shift.This work is grounded in a frontline framework developed through years of addiction medicine, street outreach and hospital consult service leadership. It is also captured in my forthcoming book The Field Guide to Frontline Care.
Core Themes
Staying human in addiction and homelessness care
Addressing harmful behavior without shaming
Holding boundaries without triggering power struggles
Repair after rupture with patients and colleagues
Anti-Indigenous racism in healthcare and the responsibilities of settler clinicians
Leadership that shifts culture without slogansOutcomes
Teams leave with scripts and shared language for real encounters.
Leaders gain tools to reduce escalation and hardening in their teams.
Organizations strengthen trust in settings where trust has been repeatedly damaged.Bring this work to your team.
The Field Guide to Frontline Care
Practical tools for frontline workers in homelessness, substance use and harm reductionWritten for shelter staff, outreach workers, peer workers and anyone doing frontline work with marginalized populations. This is the book you keep at the desk, not on the shelf.Shipping Summer 2026 from Ethica Press
Ordering for your team or organization? The waitlist includes early access to bulk pricing.
Watch Marcus Speak and see how he works with audiences.
Watch Marcus Speak
Watch Marcus in action in this PechaKucha talk on street medicine, burnout prevention, and why compassion is a strategy, not a weakness.
TikTok Reach
Videos have reached over 1.9 million views in the last year, resonating with clinicians, families, and leaders. Most viewed video has over 850K views, opening with the blunt truth: “Using drugs is the only thing that makes homelessness tolerable.
Other Resources
for Clinicians
Be the Doctor You Always Wanted to Be is a reflective workbook for physicians who want to reconnect with why they chose medicine. With more than 100 prompts on communication, meaning, and burnout, it is used by residency programs and wellness groups as a structured way to talk about the hard parts of practice.
I live and work on the unceded territory of the Laichwiltach people, and the We Wai Kai, Wei Wai Kum and Kwaikah First Nations, for which I am truly grateful.“Compassion is empathy in action.”© 2026 Dr. Marcus Greatheart