About Emily

​I didn’t set out to work in healthcare.

 

Like many people, I found my way here through experience, navigating complex chronic illness, unanswered questions, and a system that didn’t always have the language, time, or structure to fully understand what I was going through.

 

That experience reshaped how I think about communication.

 

Because in healthcare, communication isn’t just about clarity. It influences trust, access, outcomes, and how people experience care.

 

Today, I work at the intersection of patient experience, storytelling, and system change, partnering with healthcare organizations to translate lived experience into communication that is clear, inclusive, and grounded in real-world context.

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My work

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I’m a Toronto-based Patient Advisor, speaker, and communications partner. I work with healthcare organizations, research teams, and system leaders to bring a meaningful patient lens into communication, program design, and digital health initiatives.

 

My work includes:

• Co-lead writer for the development of the Clear and Inclusive Writing Guide at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

• Course designer with the Centre for Learning and Clinical Innovation at CAMH, adapting the DOORS digital literacy program, originally developed at Harvard Medical School, for people living with serious mental illness in a Canadian context

• Contributing to patient engagement and digital health initiatives with the University of Toronto Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM)

• Patient Advisor with the Canadian Institute for Health Information on patient partnership and engagement work

• Writing and contributing to national conversations through Healthy Debate

 

Across all of this, my focus is consistent:

 

How do we make healthcare communication clearer, more human, and more effective, and ensure patient perspective is meaningfully integrated into the process?

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What I bring

 

Before moving into healthcare, I built my career in marketing, communications, and strategy, working across global agencies, startups, and brand environments.

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Over fifteen years, I led and contributed to campaigns for national and international brands, working in fast-paced, high-performance environments where clarity, positioning, and execution were essential. I also founded a startup recognized for its early innovation and traction, an experience that shaped how I approach building, communicating, and scaling ideas in complex environments.

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Earlier in my career, I worked in high-touch, client-focused settings, including roles within prestigious hospitality and golf environments. These experiences grounded my understanding of service, attention to detail, and the importance of experience design, all of which continue to inform my work in healthcare today.

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This background allows me to bridge a gap that often exists in healthcare:

Translating lived experience into language, structure, and strategy that organizations can apply in practice.

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I bring:

• Over fifteen years of experience in marketing, communications, and strategy

• A systems-level understanding of healthcare and patient experience

• Strong expertise in storytelling, positioning, and audience engagement

• A practical, implementation-focused approach

• A grounded and candid perspective shaped by lived experience

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Why this work matters​

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Patient voice is being talked about more than ever, but it is still not consistently or meaningfully integrated.

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I have seen firsthand what happens when:

• communication is unclear

• patient insight is overlooked

• lived experience is treated as an afterthought

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And I have also seen what is possible when it is done well.

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This work is about closing that gap.

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Not just amplifying patient voice, but helping organizations understand how to integrate it in ways that are thoughtful, practical, and sustainable.

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A note on lived experience​

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My work is informed by navigating complex chronic conditions, including Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS), Glucose-Galactose Malabsorption (GGM), adenomyosis, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD), along with the realities of living within a healthcare system that does not always provide clear pathways for complex or poorly understood conditions.

 

I share this not as a defining label, but as context.

 

It shapes how I think, how I work, and why I care deeply about making healthcare more accessible, understandable, and human.

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Let's connect​

If you’re working on something that would benefit from a stronger patient perspective, clearer communication, or a more grounded and practical approach to engagement, I’d love to connect.​​​​​​​