WHO I AM: I’m a former healthcare trial lawyer & history teacher turned healthtech entrepreneur. I have the mind of a philosopher, heart of a poet, and spirit of a starship captain. In all that I do, curiosity is my true North Star. LET"S GRAB A DRINK: I"m a world traveler, pet lover, dreamer, and scrabble player. Ask me about: 1) My year teaching history at a naval boarding school in rural England. 2) How I apply lessons from Star Trek to everyday life. 3) How I starred in a movie about Liberace. MY WORK: equalityMD is changing how the LGBTQ+ community (a NIH designated “Health Disparity Population”) perceives and receives healthcare. 1 in 3 LGBTQ+ Americans experience discrimination in a clinical setting. Systematic discrimination from within the medical community itself has caused generations of LGBTQ+ people to lose trust the very institutions designed to care for them. This, in turn, is why 1 in 4 LGBTQ+ Americans avoid seeking care and/or delay life-saving medical treatments. Rather than endure potential mistreatment from providers, patients are opting to suffer in silence. This harms families, communities, and our entire national healthcare ecosystem. It also places undue burdens on the clinical, financial, and operational work of health systems, payors, and employers. Worse still, for those that do seek out medical providers, 1 in 6 are denied care. Just before the pandemic, I was denied care when my doctor left the room after I came out to him. This happened in DC of all places—our nation’s capital and the US city with the highest LGBTQ+ population per capita. 1 in 8 live in states where providers can legally refuse to treat LGBTQ+ patients. EqualityMD empowers LGBTQ+ patients to become the superheroes of their own healthcare stories. We’re meeting our community where they are. We’re giving patients the agency, dignity, and respect they deserve. And we’re restoring humanity to the healthcare experience. Our model can be replicated nationwide and expanded to include all of the other health disparity populations that comprise our diverse and dynamic community—from racial minorities to military veterans. To learn more about our work, visit equalityMD.com or shoot me a message. *equalityMD is the only healthcare company in the world certified as BOTH: -A Benefit Corporation (B-Corp) & -A LGBT Business Enterprise (LGBTBE - a National LGBT Chamber of Commerce supplier diversity certification).