The Health Design Podcast

Kathy O'Shea is a 46-year migraineur and 36 year professor of English, who has combined these significant parts of her life into this literary anthology centered around five themes related to migraine. She is the winner the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and has two beloved golden retrievers who are official therapy dogs at Monroe Community College in Rochester, NY, where she teache...

Tanisha Bowman, MSW, LSW, APHSW-C, NEDA Proficient, is a death doula living in Pittsburgh, PA who currently works as a full-time palliative care social worker in a small rural healthcare system. With the support of an amazing palliative care team, Tanisha has been able to explore ways to bring her passion for death care and openness about death and dying into a highly medicalized environment. Her...

Christina Gagnon is a former micro preemie survivor, born in 1986. She’s someone who’s defeated the odds at times when medical technology was 50/50. It was the time of trial and error. She’s now come to tell her heroic story to all.

Charles Gellman is the Chief Patient Advocate of HiDO Health. His expertise is in clinical informatics and data analysis which accelerates the understanding of health data to improve health outcomes. HiDO research is focused on reducing home medication errors, avoiding unnecessary hospitalizations and saving billions of healthcare dollars. Together health care can enhance transparency to all provi...

Soula Mantalvanos Artist, designer and gallerist. Advocate for the better quality of care, founder of My Health Story. Soula combines her years of living with chronic pain and her professional creative communication experience to advocate for a better quality of care. In addition to presenting at medical conferences, Soula has self-published a book, appeared in an award-winning documentary and est...

Dr. Molander is an emergency medicine physician with greater than 25 years in clinical care. She analyzes quality of care and is passionate about patient education. Dr. Molander became involved in the world of sepsis in 2007, initially training intensivists in Early Goal Directed Therapy. She served on her hospital Sepsis committee from 2009 to 2015. As chair from 2011 until 2015 she collaborated...

I am a professor of Genetics and Oncology at Memorial University, Newfoundland and Labrador (Canada). My main interests are identifying social and medical outcomes of cancer patients and their predictors (including demographic and biological markers). In the last few years, I also become interested in patient-oriented research and public engagement. I lead the Public Interest Group on Cancer Resea...

Dr. Jim Feng is a visionary entrepreneur dedicated to revolutionizing the healthcare industry through innovation and technology. With a passion for improving human performance and well-being, Dr. Feng has made significant strides in the field of integrated health models and disruptive healthcare technologies. Driven by his deep understanding of healthcare and affinity for technology-driven enterpr...

Short Bio Kimberly Reyes is a veteran educator, historian and trained political scientist. She has nearly 2 decades of experience in early childhood and primary education. Fluent in 4 languages, her parenting and educational philosophies pull from both Eastern and Western traditions. She is a mother of a toddler born at 26 weeks, speaking often on the NICU experience and other challenges facing pa...

Patricia Weltin is the CEO/Founder of Beyond the Diagnosis, a traveling art exhibit that unites art and science to inspire research and innovation of treatments for people living with rare diseases. Artists paint portraits of children living with a rare disease; the portraits then become part of a traveling exhibit for medical schools, research institutes, hospitals, museums, and art galleries aro...

Erik Cardenas is Co-Founder & CEO at Zócalo Health, a digital health company committed to providing a premier family medicine experience that is tailored for the Latino community. In his 20+ year career, Erik has assumed various leadership roles for companies like Amazon, Everlywell, and Tenet Health. In March 2021, he was appointed to Rogers Behavioral health Board of Directors. Erik is an advoca...

Christina Cummins (she, her. hers) owns a private practice and consulting agency that offers therapy services and training programs for staff development. She has been in the healthcare field for over ten years, and for most of that time, her focus has been on mental health treatment and leadership. Christina is passionate about helping progressive healthcare organizations reduce burnout and devel...

Becky Sansbury, M.Div., has spent thirty-five years focused on crisis care, working with individuals and organizations. Serving as head chaplain for Transitions LifeCare, a hospice and palliative care agency, she provided hands-on spiritual and emotional support for patients, families and colleagues. Simultaneously, she learned principles of dealing with crisis from an organizational perspective d...

Dr. Jessica “Jess” Daigle is a board-certified pediatrician, Nicu and pediatric hospitalist, and the Founder/CEO of Mom & Me MD, an in-home & virtual concierge practice in Atlanta designed to deliver 1:1 personalized care to newborns and their mothers during the 4th trimester to ease the transition home after birth. Dr. Daigle received her Doctor of Medicine at LSU School of Medicine New Orleans a...

Ramoeli was born in Lesotho, a country encircled by South Africa, and lives with Ehlers-Danlos syndromes and many other comorbid conditions. This young woman relentlessly fights for improved access to health care for rare disease patients in her home country and shares the story of her path to the diagnosis of EDS diagnosis in the context of a place where healthcare resources cannot be taken for g...

Andrea Anampa-Guzmán was born in Lima, Peru. She is a medical student at Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. In 2017, she took a break from her medical studies to perform a research rotation at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2021, she became a permanent resident of the United States and moved to Buffalo, New York. She performs research for the Department of Medicine at the Roswell Park C...

Dr. Naesha Parks was born and raised in Thomson, Georgia. She has had a number of spiritual encounters, which have contributed to her strong faith and belief that all things are possible to those who believe. Her recent encounter left her with an amazing story that she believes was meant to bless the lives of others. Dr. Parks has twenty years of experience in Early Childhood Education and Leaders...

A suburban Philadelphia native, Rob is a former All-American punter at Syracuse and has lived the rare disease journey. In December of 2010, late in his senior season, Rob was diagnosed with anaplastic astrocytoma, a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer. His prognosis at the time was less than encouraging, and his surgery, recovery, and treatment took 16 months. Prior to his diagnosis, Rob was...

Robin Powers is an expert in Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and other rare connective tissue disorders. She is a PCORI Ambassador, she is a seasoned advocate for rare diseases and patients with undiagnosed conditions and is also a motivational speaker. She is a researcher and biochemical pharmacologist, earning her degree at Buffalo State College in 2019.

Tim McLerran is a physician entrepreneur-turned AI software developer with a mission to bring together human and machine intelligence in day-to-day clinical practice. He co-founded Medical Intelligence One to carry out that mission, and the company is currently building technologies and services that help people obtain diagnoses for rare diseases. The beta version of their rare disease search tool...

Vanessa Ferreira is a patient advocate who has committed more than 14 years of professional and personal commitment to patient associations in numerous countries and areas, such as rare diseases and cancer. She holds an MBA from Sorbonne University Paris and a Ph. D. in cell and molecular biology. She has one sister living with a rare disease called Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (CDG). In...

Dr. Neuro has 10+ years of experience of providing clinical, policy, and technical leadership for infectious diseases worldwide with the U.S. Government. In recent years, he has provided his support for the 2014 Ebola Outbreak, HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria, Zika, Monkeypox, and COVID. His focus is in bridging clinical evidence to actionable policy that targets highest risk populations and ensur...

David Law is an internal medicine physician and hospitalist. He is also a musician, an award-winning filmmaker, and most importantly he is a rare disease advocate in honor of his daughter, Violet, who is diagnosed with a progressive neurologic condition, GM1 Gangliosidosis. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Dr. Veena Sison, a developmental pediatrician. Links The Cure GM1 Foundation: www. Cur...

Dr. Diana Londoño is the founder of Physician Coach Support.com, where doctors can get free and confidential, peer led support over Zoom 7 days a week. She is a certified life coach and founded this platform to help her colleagues as burnout rates are at 60% or greater for many specialties. She received the Los Angeles Medical Association Physician Leadership Award for her work with Physician Coac...

Swapna Kakani is a nationally known speaker, and an award-winning advocate in rare and chronic disease healthcare delivery and the patient experience. Her life story shows audiences her individual resilience and self-determination in the face of constant difficulties, as well as the impact her healthcare advocacy has across disciplines. Swapna was diagnosed with the rare disease Short Bowel Syndro...