Joseph Pepe is a physician executive and author with decades of experience across the continuum of care, from home health aide to hospital system chief executive officer. As president and chief executive officer, he led a 330-bed acute care hospital, a heart and vascular institute, physician practices, urgent care centers, and a joint venture ambulatory surgery center, navigating the business of health care while remaining grounded in clinical medicine. Dr. Pepe is the author of the forthcoming On All Sides of the Bed, an 80,000-word memoir that blends gripping bedside stories with lessons on leadership, ethics, and resilience. He has published on health care ethics in the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, speaks on moral leadership, and mentors clinicians and executives. He writes a popular Substack newsletter and shares reflections on Instagram at @jack_and_homer, exploring mortality, meaning, and the human side of medicine. Through his work, Dr. Pepe invites readers to reflect on how we live, how we heal, and how we lead.

He has published on clinical and ethical issues including Fever of Unknown Origin and Eosinophilia Caused by Naproxen Induced Interstitial Nephritis in Hospital Practice (1989), Tongue Abscess: Case Report and Review in Clinical Infectious Diseases (1993), and Principles of Ethical Leadership Illustrated by Institutional Management of Prion Contamination of Neurosurgical Instruments in the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (2017). Dr. Pepe has also contributed to Health Progress, Parable Magazine, and Health Affairs.