Thirty-three doctors. Seven years bedridden. Self-diagnosed. Self-rehabilitated. Then made Patient-in-Residence at two world-class institutions — and started a movement. I know exactly how systems break people. And how to fix them.
Represented by AAE Speakers Bureau ↗"For years I told an inspiring story about thriving. Then I decided to tell the truth — and everything changed."
Thirty-three doctors in the first seven years. Around a hundred in total. Every one of them failed. So I diagnosed myself, rehabilitated myself, and turned the experience into a framework for understanding how institutions fail the bodies inside them.
Then I started a movement — because what happened to me was not exceptional. It is the norm. Millions of chronically ill, neurodivergent, and otherwise "non-compliant" people are building invisible systems just to survive inside organizations that were never designed for them.
Your DEI program is probably not fixing this. It is, in most cases, costing millions while the underlying infrastructure stays broken. I know because I have been on both sides — the patient your system failed, and the strategic advisor your C-suite calls when the programs stop working.
That combination cannot be replicated. And it is the only thing that actually produces change.
What happens when the system fails you completely — 33 doctors, 7 years, no answers? You build a new one. This talk on radical self-advocacy, patient power, and why the most dangerous thing you can do is tell the truth became the foundation of everything that followed.
Roi doesn't give you the comfortable version. He gives you the true one — and that's exactly what our leadership team needed to hear.
I've seen hundreds of inclusion keynotes. This was the first time the room went silent in the right way — because everyone recognized the problem was theirs.
The Patient-in-Residence framework changed how we think about patient involvement at an institutional level. Not a consultant — a genuine strategic partner.
Healthcare institutions, technology companies, and Fortune 500 organizations ready to stop performing inclusion and start building it. Click any service to see the full detail — pricing on enquiry for consulting and advisory engagements.
Seven published books spanning chronic illness, patient rights, organizational systems, public speaking, and the communications frameworks that underpin the work. Each one a chapter in the same argument: radical honesty is the only thing that actually changes rooms.
A selection of contexts where the work happens — from TEDx stages and international summits to hands-on workshops and the media movement that grew out of all of it.
Three interconnected platforms. The professional practice. The media movement. The education. Together they form the argument that radical honesty about chronic illness and organizational failure is not a niche — it is the future.
I don't take every engagement. I take the right ones — organizations genuinely ready to transform, not just perform. If that's you, let's talk.