The patient’s voice in the room.
Lived experience, plainspoken.
I speak to healthcare organizations, patient communities, employers, and women’s health audiences about what healthcare looks like from the patient side — the navigation, the heart attack at 42, the caregiving, and the slow work of building a life inside a diagnosis. Calm, candid, useful. Not consulting; not advice. The patient’s voice, in the room.
I’ve been the patient. For a long time.
I’ve lived with chronic illness for more than fifteen years. In 2023, at forty-two, with none of the usual risk factors, I had a heart attack. Three years ago my in-laws moved in with us, and I became a caregiver alongside being a patient and a full-time professional. The sandwich generation, statistically. A whole life, lived inside healthcare, in person.
My background is in healthcare technology — twenty years of product leadership inside the system. But I don’t speak as an executive or a consultant. I speak as the patient who learned the system the hard way, and as the writer trying to share what I wish someone had handed me at every turn. The talks below are the ones I keep being asked to give.
Five talks I give.
Each can run as a keynote (30–60 min), a fireside conversation, a panel anchor, or a workshop format. Talks are tailored to your audience after a short discovery call.
The Patient Has Left the Building
What healthcare looks like from the patient side — the invisible second job of navigation, the records, the appeals, the phone trees. For healthcare conferences, patient experience teams, and clinicians who want to hear it.
The Heart Attack That Shouldn’t Have Happened
A young woman, no risk factors, and a cardiovascular event that the system almost missed. My 2023 story and what it reveals about the chronic under-diagnosis of women’s heart disease. For women’s health audiences, employer wellness, AHA / Go Red programs.
The Sandwich Generation Is Cracking
The data and lived reality of caregiving while working while managing your own health. What employers, HR leaders, and policymakers are missing — and what actually helps. For HR conferences, employer wellness, caregiving organizations.
Anyway: A Life Inside a Diagnosis
Identity, adaptation, and the slow work of staying yourself while your body changes. Resilience without the wellness clichés. For patient communities, women’s organizations, broader audiences who want honest rather than tidy.
What I Learned the Hard Way About Healthcare
The practical workshop: appointment preparation, the CLEAR Visit Method, records and rights, appeals, second opinions. Tools your audience can use the next morning. For employer wellness, patient orgs, community groups.
“The patient’s voice belongs in the room where decisions about patients get made. Calmly, candidly, and on the program.”
— Heather
Who I speak to.
Healthcare conferences
Patient experience tracks, clinician audiences, conferences for hospitals, payers, and digital health teams who want the patient perspective on the agenda — not as a token, but as substance.
Patient communities & advocacy organizations
Disease-specific organizations, chronic illness communities, women’s heart health groups, caregiving networks. Talks that meet your audience where they actually are.
Employer wellness & HR
Lunch-and-learns, ERGs, women’s networks, benefits-team trainings, caregiver-support programs. The patient and caregiver perspective for the people who design benefits.
Podcasts & media
Health, women’s wellness, caregiving, women in leadership, sandwich-generation, chronic illness. I’m a guest who shows up prepared and brings stories your audience will remember.
How we can work together.
Speaker fees and pro bono inquiries are both welcome. Nonprofit, patient-advocacy, and small-community rates exist for a reason. Let’s talk about what makes sense for your event.