Vienna  ·  Chronically ill  ·  In rooms that change people

Find what the system made unsayable. Say it.

I have POTS. I spent seven years in bed while doctors looked for a different answer. I found it myself. Now I write, speak, and build things — mostly for people the system still can't see.

Roi Shternin — patient expert, author, keynote speaker
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The Room

An Afternoon with Roi.

"I think everyone needs an afternoon with Roi now and then."
— Riccarda P., Krems, April 2026

The topic is always the door. Patient communication, resilience, leadership, invisible weight — we choose together. What actually happens inside is the work underneath: people come back to themselves.

You arrive performing your role. The clinician role. The leader role. The caregiver role. The strong one. You leave being the person underneath — able to say what you couldn't say before, to see what you'd stopped seeing, or to feel something you'd been managing away.

This happens because most professional spaces actively prevent honesty. They reward compliance over truth. They ask you to perform, not to be. This room reverses that.

It takes an afternoon. People remember it for years. Stefan from Krems applied it to a patient that same evening. David said: "I am a changed man. I can't go back to unminded living."

"I am a changed man after this talk. I can't go back to unminded living."

— David P., Belgrade University

"The magic begins as soon as you appear. You're a master in creating emotional atmospheres."

— Stefan, Krems

"I have never seen a speaker like you before."

— Dorthe H., Boehringer Ingelheim
The format
People 10–12 maximum
Duration Half-day · 3–4 hours
Setting Sofas preferred. A room that feels like a room.
Topic Chosen by the host. The topic is always the door.
Fee From €2,000 · or €150/person (min. 8)

No intake form. No discovery call unless you want one. Just an email saying you're interested and who the room is for.

Book The Room →

Roi reads every message personally.

"I left with the feeling that I had grown on a human level."

Alexandra A. — Krems

"This is the most important lesson I have had in medical school."

Sarah H. — Tel Aviv University

"I could immediately put the spirit into practice — the same evening."

Stefan — Krems (about a patient, that night)
Who I Am
Roi Shternin — patient expert and keynote speaker
Roi Shternin
Based Vienna, Austria
Countries Spoken in 27
Taught 15,000 people · 20,000 HCPs
Books 7 published
Counseling LSB License 2026
Languages English · Hebrew · German

I was sick for ten years. Seven of them bedridden.

The medical system didn't know what to do with me. So it did what systems do with things they can't categorize: it made me invisible.

I became obsessed with that. Not bitterly — curiously. Why do people with something real to say go unheard? What actually happens in the gap between what someone feels and what they can say out loud in a room that has power over them?

That's not my backstory. That's my qualification.

I've spent fifteen years inside that question. Training 20,000 healthcare professionals. Teaching 15,000 people — most of them sick, exhausted, dismissed — how to speak when everything is working against them. Advising pharma companies. Speaking in 27 countries. Writing seven books. Being the first patient ever placed inside a medical research institute not as a subject but as a voice.

I still have ME/CFS. I still have POTS. I still know what it is to perform wellness you don't feel, in rooms that need you to be fine.

I work with spoonies who need to advocate for themselves. Carers who've become invisible in the room. Healthcare professionals who went into medicine to connect and ended up somewhere else.

The work is always the same: find what the system made unsayable. Say it.

I run intensives in Vienna. I write at Chronically when I have something real to say. I teach when people are ready to learn.

Online Learning

The ABC of Speaking

Learn to speak when your body won't cooperate. For people with chronic illness, healthcare professionals, patient advocates, or anyone speaking from a place of vulnerability.

📚
Self-Paced
Complete modules at your own pace. Lifetime access. No schedule, no deadlines.
🎯
Practical & Applied
Not theory. Real techniques for speaking when everything works against you.
👥
15,000+ Students
Proven methods. Tested by thousands of speakers worldwide.
What you'll learn:
  • Finding your voice when illness makes it feel impossible
  • Structuring talks that work with limited energy
  • Advocacy communication for medical settings
  • Public speaking fundamentals adapted for chronic illness
  • Telling your story without performing wellness you don't feel
Complete Course
€97
One-time payment · Lifetime access
Enroll Now →
30-day money-back guarantee. No questions asked.
What Rooms Say
Not like a stranger. Like a brother. He said what I have been living but could never articulate.
LinkedIn — following a post on chronic illness and performance
I've been performing recovery for ten years. I didn't have a name for it until this talk.
Audience member — organizational empathy conference
I thought this wasn't going to be relevant to me. It was the most relevant talk of the day. I left thinking about three people I manage differently.
Senior Leader — Healthcare organization
He touched something that most speakers are paid to leave alone. The room was completely still.
Conference organizer — European patient advocacy summit
Speaking

When I have
something real to say.

I only speak when the talk feels true and the room feels right. If you're looking for a speaker who will tell your audience what they want to hear, I'm the wrong person.

The Invisible Patient
What actually happens when the person in front of you is performing wellness they don't feel — and what it costs everyone in the room when that goes unnamed.
Signature Keynote 45–60 min Any audience
The Narrative Body
For medical and clinical audiences. How the stories patients are allowed to tell — and the ones they are not — become measurable biological reality. Narrative medicine meets lived experience.
Medical / Clinical 30–60 min
Voice Recovery
What it actually takes to speak when everything is working against you — illness, dismissal, exhaustion, systems that weren't built for the full human inside them.
Workshop Half-day Patient / HCP audiences
Can AI restore humanity in healthcare?
For medical and technology audiences. How AI in healthcare has drifted from mandated outcomes — and what it actually takes to bring it back to the human in front of you.
Keynote 45–60 min Medical / Tech
Spoken in 27 countries across healthcare, pharma, tech & education
Past clients Boehringer Ingelheim · Takeda · Novartis · Google · IBM
Format Keynote · Workshop · Panel · Medical Grand Rounds
Languages English · Hebrew
Patient-in-Residence Ludwig Boltzmann Institute · Sheba Medical Center
The Books

Seven books.
One unflinching voice.

Spanning chronic illness, patient rights, healthcare AI, and the body's hidden architecture. An eighth is in progress.

Watch

TEDx Talks

What Patients Want
TEDxShanghai · Patient Innovation & Healthcare Systems
Can AI restore humanity in healthcare?
TEDxMedUniGraz · AI & Healthcare Systems
Chronically
Writing without
performing it.

Essays about illness, voice, body narrative, and the gap between what we feel and what we can say. No content calendar. No algorithm. Just honest writing when there's something honest to say.

Read Chronically →
He said what I have been living but could never articulate.
Reader — Chronically
Get in Touch
If something here
resonates — write to me.

No contact form. No discovery call booking system. No automated response. If something on this page felt true — about the room, about a keynote, about any of it — write to me directly. I read everything.

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Legal Notice

Impressum

Medieninhaber & Herausgeber
Roi Shternin
1180 Wien, Austria
Unternehmensgegenstand
Unternehmensberatung einschließlich der Unternehmensorganisation
(Business Consulting including Organizational Development)
Gewerbeberechtigung
GISA-Zahl: 38626050
Behörde: Magistrat der Stadt Wien
Haftungsausschluss
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