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What happens when your professional life in global health collides with the personal reality of being a caregiver? For Paurvi Bhatt, the answer has been a career and a life shaped by both.
Paurvi, a public health leader and former CEO of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers, joined us on the Expanding Access podcast to share her story. What followed was an honest and deeply human conversation about caregiving, isolation, equity, and why leaders must put connection at the heart of innovation.
Paurvi’s early career unfolded during the HIV crisis, where she saw firsthand how communities rallied when systems fell short. That “whole of society” response, she says, holds powerful lessons for today.
Decades later, she found herself facing those same trade-offs at home. She stepped into the role of caregiver for her father, who had early-onset dementia, and later for her mother.
Her reflection is powerful: “I was studying how families made impossible choices. I didn’t realize I was living those choices myself.”
Caregiving is not only a family matter. It is also a workforce issue, a public health issue, and an equity issue. Nearly all of us will experience it, yet too often it remains unpaid, unsupported, and invisible.
Paurvi recalls keeping her phone on the interview table years ago and telling employers: “I’m a working daughter. Your phone may ring because your child is at soccer. Mine may ring because my father wandered.”
That truth shaped her leadership style: showing up authentically, advocating firmly but compassionately, and proving that caregiving is as much a part of professional life as any title or credential.
Care is not only about tasks; it is also about connection. The hardest part, Paurvi explains, is the isolation, the quiet separation from peers, communities, and even the health system itself.
The pandemic made this painfully clear. Families were expected to provide “hospital at home” without adequate resources or cultural sensitivity. As Paurvi remembers: “My mom came home from the hospital with 10 days of frozen oatmeal because that’s all the system could offer a vegetarian household.”
The hardest part of caregiving, she explained, is not the tasks themselves but the quiet separation from peers, communities, and even the health system.
For Paurvi, “impact” is one of the most overused words in health and social care. True impact is not about stories that sound good. It is about measurable outcomes that actually scale. Innovation in care delivery, technology, and policy must prioritize efficacy over efficiency.
Her call to leaders: slow down, ask the hard follow-up questions, and do not confuse effort with impact. Otherwise, systems will continue to look good on paper while failing families at home.
So what now? For Paurvi, the path forward is simple. Look people in the eye. Reclaim time. Build flexibility into systems. And never let innovation replace the very thing that matters most: human connection.
As she puts it: “None of us wants Rosie the Robot to bathe our mothers.”
This podcast episode is a blueprint for what’s next in behavioral health, caregiving, and leadership.
It challenges us to:
Because when care hits home, and it always does, the question is whether our systems, our workplaces, and our leaders will be ready.
🎧 Stream this episode of Expanding Access wherever you get your podcasts. Click here to view all other episodes.
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