About Me
My work in health communications is grounded in a deep respect for language, adult learning, and the real-world challenges people face when navigating healthcare.
Commitment to Health Communications
For almost 20 years, I have helped teams create content across a wide range of medical specialties, including neurology, urology, nephrology, and oncology. As I work, I ask myself: How much will readers understand? Can we make the text clearer? Will plain language help?
We all bring different experiences, assumptions, and concerns into healthcare settings. Well-intentioned health information can miss the mark if it doesn’t account for cultural context, language barriers, or varying levels of health knowledge. Thoughtful, audience-centered language helps bridge those gaps.
These perspectives guide every piece of health content I work on, from early drafts to final edits.
Photo by Dione Morton.
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Encountering Health Literacy
The first time I encountered health literacy, I didn’t know that’s what it was.
On a blustery December night in college, a friend injured his knee and asked me to drive him to the emergency room. While we were waiting, a woman and her husband rushed in. From what we could gather, English was not their first language. The woman had accidentally drunk rubbing alcohol, and the couple was desperately trying to explain that to the triage nurse.
I never learned the outcome. But the experience stayed with me, and it quietly shaped the work I would go on to do.
A Love of Language
Long before that night at the hospital, language had already taken hold of me. When I was four years old, my nine-year-old brother instilled a love of reading by creating word games and activities out of construction paper and Alpha-Bits cereal.
Those early experiences sparked a lifelong fascination with how people learn language and how powerful clear communication can be.
I studied book publishing and editing as an undergraduate and later earned a master’s degree in applied linguistics, with plans to teach adult ESOL (English to speakers of other languages). Ultimately, I brought that background into freelance health writing and editing.
Education and Professional Development
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University of Massachusetts at Boston
MA in Applied Linguistics
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Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York
BA in English – specialization in book publishing
Minor in Communications
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Poynter / ACES Certificate in Editing
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University of California at Berkeley Extension – Editing Certificate
American Medical Writers Association – Essential Skills Certificate
Extensive training in the Chicago Manual of Style, AP Style, and
AMA Style.