My clinical training didn't prepare me for this work. Losing everything did.

I'm a physician, and I'm also someone who lived through the same system failures I now work to fix. I don't lead with one and footnote the other anymore.

I survived the September 11th attacks with PTSD and depression I never treated, and for more than a decade I practiced anesthesiology while quietly using drugs to cope. I got into recovery in May 2015. A year later, one month into an addiction medicine fellowship, I was arrested for conduct during my active addiction and lost my medical license. I was in recovery, doing the work, and none of it counted. It should have.

In 2024, that conviction led to two months in immigration detention. Three law enforcement professionals I'd worked with came to my hearing ready to testify for me, including one who had helped investigate my case. I was allowed to stay.

I've written the full account here →

The way back started with law enforcement. A Pennsylvania harm reduction coalition hired me to work with the Pennsylvania Sheriffs' Association, training officers on substance use and on the public health strategies that keep people alive. When the coalition dissolved, I co-founded Elevyst to carry the work forward.

Since then, I've worked across health care and public safety, training and advising everyone from ER staff and paramedics to police, judges, and prosecutors. Much of the work is getting people who rarely sit at the same table to solve the same problem: keeping people alive, getting them into high-quality care, and helping them build better lives. I've trained more than 3,000 professionals across 14 states, led national research on stigma toward drug use and recovery, and teach at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health.

My story is why this work is different. Most consultants have studied the system from the outside. I've been the patient nobody wanted to treat, the physician nobody checked on, and the felon everyone assumed was finished. I bring that experience to every organization I work with, along with my clinical training, and the combination is why people in the room listen.

If your team is ready to respond to substance use differently, let's talk.