Favorite part about being human:

The way it feels the exact moment you start laughing through tears— and how we somehow show up for each other when we need it most.

What I wish people understood about humanities as a solution:

The humanities gives us the language to answer life’s most complex questions (about suffering and care and joy and tragedy) in a way that science can never fully answer.

Wish for healthcare

To resist transactional care and fully embrace the reality that healthcare is a human, relational, and transformational endeavor.

I’m passionate about bringing healing to those who are committed to healing others. I’ve spent the last 14 years teaching medical students, residents, and clinicians about compassion, suffering, and the lived experience of illness and loss. I currently serve as the Associate Dean for Faculty Leadership and a Clinical Associate Professor of Medical Humanities at Creighton University School of Medicine in Phoenix, Arizona. 

Much of my work is shaped by my own personal story. I was the primary caregiver for my mother who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer when I was twenty. When my mother died two years later, I wanted to better understand the silence around death and dying in medicine that led to my mother dying in the hospital instead of at home where she wanted to be. So, I focused my graduate studies on uncovering why medical culture struggles with vulnerability, suffering, and grief.

This work led me to pursue a PhD in Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch where I studied philosophy, medical ethics, literature and medicine, and medical epistemology and pedagogy. I have published two books with The MIT press, Afflicted: How Vulnerability Can Heal Medical Education and Practice(2018) and Death and Dying (2021), which draws on my father’s cancer experience and death, eight years after my mother’s death. 

I feel called to help others express both the pain and beauty that comes with a life in healthcare. I’m committed to helping others find the courage to slow down and look deeper—at themselves, at their work, at their life—and how to move forward with intention and purpose. I’ve been honored to share my messages at universities and healthcare centers across the country, and to collaborate with leaders to think of new ways forward in healthcare and healthcare education. As a certified coach, I work one-on-one with those who are looking to reconnect to meaning and purpose in their work, to uncover the reasons why they were drawn to their work in the first place, and to help individuals move forward in new directions, both professionally and personally.