Episode Summary

In this episode, Ursula Mann is joined by Christine Pisapia for a thoughtful conversation with Sigrun Watson, a healthcare leader and entrepreneur passionate about improving women’s health and reducing stigma around mental health.

Sigrun shares her personal journey with perfectionism, an eating disorder, depression, and what it meant to seek help—and why storytelling and community can be powerful first steps toward healing. The conversation also explores gaps in women’s health education and care, including pelvic floor health and menopause, and what Sigrun is building through her work with UROSPOT to make pelvic health support more accessible and modern.

Why you should listen

Listen if you want:

• A real, compassionate conversation about mental health, perfectionism, and asking for help
• Insight into why women’s health is still under-researched and under-discussed
• A clearer understanding of pelvic floor health, menopause-related changes, and why symptoms are often normalized
• A leadership perspective grounded in empathy, lived experience, and patient-centered care
• Hopeful reminders that you’re not alone—and that support can start with hearing someone else’s story

Episode Highlights

[00:00:00] Introduction
Ursula and Brent welcome listeners to Amplify – Elevating Patient Voices and introduce the themes of women’s health, mental health, and leadership.

[00:03:00] Meet Sigrun Watson
Sigrun shares her Icelandic roots, career journey from dietitian to pharmaceutical executive, and her passion for healthcare transformation.

[00:06:11] Perfectionism & Eating Disorders
Sigrun opens up about her struggle with bulimia, the connection between perfectionism and eating disorders, and how mental health shaped her career path.

[00:08:54] The Impact on Young People
Christine and Sigrun discuss perfectionism in children, early warning signs for parents, and the pressures of social media.

[00:12:15] Depression & Dark Thoughts in University
Sigrun shares her experience with depression during first-year university and why early intervention and support matter.

[00:14:03] The Power of Storytelling & Unsinkable
Sigrun discusses her work with Unsinkable, the healing power of shared stories, and how vulnerability creates connection and hope.

[00:18:52] Mental Health Access & Affordability
The conversation explores barriers to accessing care and why hearing others’ lived experiences can be a powerful first step.

[00:22:45] Women’s Health Gaps
Ursula transitions the discussion to women’s health—highlighting stigma, lack of education, and systemic research gaps in menopause and midlife care.

[00:23:19] Sigrun’s Menopause Journey
Sigrun shares her personal experience with perimenopause and menopause, and how it reshaped her perspective on healthcare.

[00:27:55] Pelvic Floor Health Explained
A deep dive into pelvic floor muscle function, why issues like bladder leakage are common but under-discussed, and how hormonal changes accelerate muscle weakening.

[00:30:36] What UROSPOT Does
Sigrun explains the technology behind pelvic floor rehabilitation and how non-invasive electromagnetic therapy works.

[00:33:41] The Reward of Being Close to Patients
Sigrun reflects on moving from corporate healthcare into entrepreneurship and the profound impact of working directly with patients.

[00:34:43] Closing Reflections
Ursula and Christine thank Sigrun for her candor and leadership in advancing mental health awareness and women’s health innovation.

Want to Share Your Voice?

If you’re a patient or caregiver, you&

Episode Summary

In this episode of Amplify: Elevating Patient Voices, hosts Ursula Mann and Brent Korte speak with Reg Joseph, CEO of Health Cities, about how community-based care, patient empowerment, and system design shape real healthcare outcomes.

Reg shares insights from his background in biotechnology, finance, and healthcare innovation, explaining why technology alone cannot fix healthcare challenges. The conversation highlights the importance of redesigning care models, supporting patient self-management, and integrating healthcare into communities—especially in rural and underserved settings.

Drawing from real-world examples and personal experience as a patient, this episode explores prevention, data use, access to care, and why the future of healthcare must extend beyond hospitals and clinics.

Why You Should Listen

• Learn why community-based healthcare is critical to better outcomes
• Understand how innovation should be driven by patient and system needs, not technology
• Hear practical examples of remote monitoring and self-management in action
• Gain insights into rural healthcare access and decentralized care models
• Discover how patients can self-advocate and partner with clinicians
• Explore how responsible health data use can improve community wellness

Episode Highlights (with Timestamps)

• [00:00–01:36] Introduction to Reg Joseph and the focus on community-driven healthcare
• [02:06–04:21] Reg’s transition from biotech and finance into healthcare systems
• [04:21–05:14] Why healthcare innovation often fails due to system complexity
• [05:47–07:18] Designing care models before introducing technology
• [07:18–08:21] Meeting patients where they are to improve outcomes
• [08:36–11:22] Remote monitoring, rural care challenges, and patient self-management
• [11:22–12:32] Prevention, education, and long-term wellness
• [12:46–14:17] A personal patient experience inside the healthcare system
• [14:40–17:35] How patients can self-advocate and engage clinicians effectively
• [17:35–19:46] What healthcare can learn from banking and consultative models
• [20:01–22:31] Simplifying complex systems through community collaboration
• [22:31–24:37] Rural Alberta as a model for integrated community care
• [25:32–29:10] Decentralized care, technology, and access beyond urban centers
• [29:55–31:03] Looking ahead: leadership, recovery, and personal goals
• [31:03–32:01] Final reflections on patient-centered, community-based healthcare

Want to Share Your Voice?

If you’re a patient or caregiver, you can join Patient Voice Connect to share your experiences and help shape healthcare here.

Join our email list to get new episode updates here.

Together, we can bring more voices to the table and shape the future of healthcare.

Share this episode, leave a review, and follow Patient Voice Partners on LinkedIn to help amplify more voices.

Medical Disclaimer:

The content shared on Amplify is for informational and educational purposes only.

Nothing discussed on this podcast—including stories, experiences, perspectives, or commentary from hosts, guests, or contributors—should be interpreted as medical a

In this episode of Amplify: Elevating Patient Voices, hosts Ursula Mann and Barry Liden are joined by Barry Stein, President and CEO of Colorectal Cancer Canada, for a powerful and deeply personal conversation about colorectal cancer, early screening, and why patient voices matter in shaping healthcare systems.

Barry Stein shares his remarkable journey—from a late-stage colorectal cancer diagnosis in the mid-1990s, through multiple surgeries and innovative treatments, to becoming one of Canada’s most influential patient advocates. His story highlights how determination, shared decision-making, and advocacy can drive meaningful change at both the individual and system level.

Together, the hosts explore why colorectal cancer screening is so critical, how screening programs have evolved across Canada, and the real-world barriers patients face when it comes to testing and access to care. The conversation also dives into the importance of patient engagement in research, clinical trials, and health technology decision-making—reminding us that data alone is never enough without lived experience.

This episode is a compelling reminder that patients are not just stakeholders in healthcare—they are essential partners.

In This Episode, You’ll Hear About:

• Barry Stein’s personal experience with stage IV colorectal cancer and what it taught him about advocacy
• Why early detection and screening save lives
• The role of FIT testing and colonoscopy in colorectal cancer screening
• How patient voices influence policy, access, and innovation in healthcare
• Why patient preference and lived experience matter in research and decision-making
• The long-term impact of advocacy—for individuals, families, and health systems

How is patient engagement evolving in one of the world’s fastest-changing healthcare regions?
In this episode, Ursula Mann and Christine Pisapia sit down with Mostafa Najib, a pharmaceutical leader with more than 20 years of experience across the Middle East.

Together, they explore how patient expectations are shifting, how technology and policy are reshaping access to innovation, and why meaningful patient insight is still one of healthcare’s biggest challenges—globally.

Why You Should Listen

• To gain a global perspective on how patient voices are being integrated into healthcare decision-making
• To understand what’s changing in the Middle East—and what remains surprisingly similar worldwide
• To hear real-world reflections from inside the pharmaceutical industry
• To explore how patient insight can shape better strategy, access, and outcomes
• To consider what the future of patient-centered healthcare could look like across systems

Episode Highlights

00:03:32 — Entering the pharmaceutical world
How Mostafa found his path into pharma and why the commercial side captured his interest.

00:05:03 — The rise of patient engagement in the Middle East
A look at how patient expectations and behaviors have shifted over the last two decades.

00:06:00 — The limits of traditional patient programs
Why awareness and access initiatives still fall short of capturing what patients truly value.

00:07:26 — When assumptions miss the mark
How physician perceptions sometimes diverge from what patients actually want or fear.

00:08:42 — Shared global patterns
Christine reflects on similar trends in North America—from “Dr. Google” to increasing patient advocacy.

00:09:05 — The evolving role of patient groups
Why patient associations are more established in Europe and North America than in the Middle East.

00:11:04 — Faster access to innovation
How regulatory modernization is closing the gap between U.S. approvals and local availability.

00:12:23 — Digital transformation (and no more faxing)
A lighthearted look at how digital health infrastructure has rapidly advanced in the region.

00:14:35 — What’s missing from patient insight
The everyday realities, symptoms, and priorities that often never reach the healthcare system.

00:17:09 — Shrinking visit time
How shorter appointments impact patient–physician communication and understanding.

00:20:20 — Designing a connected ecosystem
Mostafa imagines a future where patients, providers, payers, and pharma collaborate more seamlessly.

00:21:43 — When patient feedback redirects strategy
A real-world example of how one insight changed the course of a major investment.

00:25:30 — Surfing, seasons, and perspective
A glimpse into Mostafa’s life outside of work—and the waves he’s chasing next.

Want to Share Your Voice?

If you’re a patient or caregiver, you can join Patient Voice Connect to share your experiences and help shape healthcare here.

Join our email list to get new episode updates here.

Together, we can bring more voices to the table and shape the future of healthcare.

Share this episode, leave a review, and follow Patient Voice Partners on LinkedIn to help amplify more voices.

Welcome to the launch episode of Amplify, the podcast powered by Patient Voice Partners, where real stories spark bold conversations. In this episode, host Ursula Mann is joined by her co-hosts Brent Korte, Barry Liden, Anne Marie Hayes, and Christine Pisapia as they explore what patient engagement really means - and why it’s personal, not just professional.

Together, they share stories of caregiving, lived experiences, and the ways patient voices can influence decisions across healthcare - from policy and regulation to research and clinical care. Learn why listening to patients, caregivers, and healthcare changemakers matters, how insights from lived experiences translate into action, and the impact of truly inclusive patient engagement.

This episode also introduces Amplify’s mission: to provide a platform that elevates patient voices, fosters understanding, and inspires listeners to think differently, listen differently, and take action in their own healthcare ecosystems.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why patient engagement is personal for every member of the healthcare ecosystem
• How patient perspectives can influence business, regulatory, and clinical decisions
• The challenges and opportunities in translating patient experiences into meaningful outcomes
• Ways listeners—patients, caregivers, clinicians, and innovators—can contribute to change

Want to Share Your Voice?

If you’re a patient or caregiver, you can join Patient Voice Connect to share your experiences and help shape healthcare here.

Join our email list to get new episode updates here.

Together, we can bring more voices to the table and shape the future of healthcare.

Share this episode, leave a review, and follow Patient Voice Partners on LinkedIn to help amplify more voices.

Episode Summary

In this powerful episode of Amplify, hosts Ursula Mann and Christina Pisapia speak with Erin Paterson, a writer, caregiver, and advocate whose life was transformed by Huntington’s Disease (HD).

Just as Erin and her husband were preparing to start a family, she learned a long-kept family secret: her grandmother may have died from Huntington’s. This revelation pushed Erin into rapid genetic testing, where she tested gene-positive. What followed was a decade-long struggle with depression, infertility, caregiving responsibilities, and fear of the future.

But Erin rebuilt her life through writing, community, caregiving, and storytelling. Today, she advocates globally for people living with rare diseases and cares for her father, who is now in his 80s with late-onset HD. Her story is one of courage, connection, and the quiet beauty of finding purpose—even when living with uncertainty.

Why You Should Listen

This episode is for you if you:

• Work in healthcare and want to understand how to deliver compassionate, human-centered care for people with neurological and rare diseases.
• Support a loved one with chronic illness and want to hear how another caregiver navigates emotional, logistical, and generational challenges.
• Are navigating inherited risk, fear of the unknown, or the emotional weight of a diagnosis—personally or within your family.
• Believe in the power of storytelling, community, and advocacy to transform pain into purpose.
• Want to hear how small acts of joy and presence can sustain connection—especially when speech and movement change.

You’ll walk away with a deeper understanding of Huntington’s disease, the importance of slowing down in care settings, and how love and community can reshape even the hardest realities.

Episode Highlights

00:00 — Understanding Huntington’s Disease
A clear, human explanation of what HD is and why lived experience is essential.

02:35 — A family secret revealed
Erin shares the unexpected moment that changed the course of her life.

03:57 — Facing a life-altering diagnosis
How Erin processed the news and what the early emotional impact looked like.

08:28 — Becoming a caregiver
What it meant to step into supporting her father as HD progressed.

09:46 — Advocacy in the healthcare system
Erin reflects on what patients and families often need—but don’t always receive.

13:24 — Rebuilding after a difficult season
The small, intentional practices that helped her slowly find her way forward.

15:49 — Transforming pain into purpose
How writing, publishing, and community shifted Erin’s path.

28:34 — Connection beyond words
A beautiful insight into staying close to a loved one when communication changes.

In this conversation, Ursula and Anne Marie sit down with Mark Stolow, Founding Director of People Before Patients, to explore what it truly means to humanize healthcare.

Drawing from early caregiving experiences and over two decades in public health, Mark challenges the industrial logic shaping today’s system and offers new metaphors—like forests, ecologies, and “the dome”—to help us reimagine care in a more relational, alive, and humane way.

He also introduces the practice of asking “more beautiful questions,” examines the difference between cold and warm data, and shares how slowing down might be the most urgent step toward redesigning healthcare for the future.

Why You Should Listen

• You’ll rethink the phrase “humanizing healthcare”—and why it reveals how far we’ve drifted from care’s original purpose.
• Mark offers powerful metaphors (forest ecology, The Truman Show dome, bonsai) that reframe how we understand illness, suffering, and systems.
• You’ll learn why data alone can’t capture a person’s lived experience, and why healthcare must balance cold metrics with warm context.
• This episode gives clinicians, patients, caregivers, and leaders a new lens for imagining what healthcare could become if we widen the frame.
• It invites us to ask better, more beautiful questions—the kind that open new pathways instead of repeating old answers.

Episode Highlights (Timestamps)

00:00 – Welcome to Amplify
Ursula, Brent, and Anne Marie introduce the episode and its focus on perspectives that can reshape healthcare’s future.

00:34 – Meet Mark Stolow
Mark is introduced as a thought explorer and founding director of People Before Patients, with more than 20 years in the human development and health space.

01:04 – Mark’s origin story
How caring for his mother during severe bipolar episodes shaped his lifelong interest in human suffering, psychology, and healing.

02:28 – Eastern philosophies and “the wisdom of anxiety”
Mark shares how Buddhist and Indian schools of thought influenced his academic and personal exploration of the mind.

04:00 – What does “humanizing healthcare” really mean?
Why the phrase surprises Mark, and what it reveals about how far we’ve drifted from a human-centered understanding of care.

05:45 – A family carrying the weight
Mark reflects on growing up in a household affected by mental illness and what he wishes the family had understood earlier.

07:54 – Healthcare professionals are longing for humanness too
The increasing dissatisfaction and yearning for meaning among clinicians.

08:56 – The forest metaphor: Healthcare as a living ecology
How interconnected systems like forests can teach us more about care than industrial models.

11:00 – What’s getting in the way? The limits of industrial thinking
Why healthcare’s “input-output” mindset fails to capture the complexity of human lives and chronic illness.

12:52 – Expanding the edges of illness
Cancer isn’t only what shows up on scans—Mark describes its ripple effects across relationships, identity, and daily life.

13:45 – Discreet solutions to complex problems
Why industrial solutions are often partial—and what’s missing.

14:38 – A better metaphor: ecological thinking
Shifting from centers and hierarchies to interdependence and mutuality.

16:00 – Ask a more beautiful question
What makes a question “beautiful,” why it requires patience, and how it helps us understand pro

A routine nudge from a family doctor changed everything. After being sent for a mammogram she had delayed, Share was diagnosed with stage 0, triple-negative breast cancer—caught extraordinarily early. In this candid conversation, she walks us through that phone call, the whirlwind of next steps, and the mindset and micro-supports that helped her stay grounded: humor, weekly friend check-ins, complementary therapies, and clear self-advocacy. We also talk about what truly helpful support sounds like, why routine screening matters (even without symptoms), and how this experience is shaping her life, work, and a new legacy-preserving project for families.

Why listen

• A real-world case of early detection saving options—and likely outcomes
• Practical scripts for self-advocacy when guidelines and funding create friction
• Compassionate guidance for friends & family: what to say, how to show up, and when to just listen
• An uplifting reminder that attitude and humor are legitimate forms of support

Key moments

• 00:01:02 — The curveball: A proactive GP flags an overdue mammogram; results move quickly to ultrasound and biopsy.
• 00:05:00 — “Triple-negative” at stage 0: Why speed mattered; a second tiny tumor was found by surgery day.
• 00:06:07 — The GP everyone deserves: Thorough history, time to listen, and even a hug.
• 00:11:00 — Two diagnoses in one day: Processing the news and choosing a forward plan.
• 00:12:00 — Building a circle of support fast: Reiki, self-hypnosis audio, nutrition plan, acupuncture & herbs.
• 00:13:05 — “Don’t should me”: Responding to others’ expectations about how to feel.
• 00:17:32 — Feeling seen: The power of two close friends and brave, non-invasive check-ins.
• 00:20:08 — Daily gratitude practice: Coffee, quiet, noticing small joys.
• 00:25:30 — Screening: No symptoms, no pain—still cancer. Don’t delay routine tests.
• 00:27:14 — Mindset matters: “Cancer loves despair.” Choose light, and ask for help if you can’t find it.
• 00:28:03 — Work & legacy: Launching Film & Life to preserve family memories.
• 00:30:14 — What she’s reading: Murder mysteries and JD Robb’s In Death series.
• 00:29:13 — Raiders fan for life: Loyalty, teamwork, and showing up to the end.

Resources & mentions

• Routine screening: talk to your GP about what’s recommended for your age & history and what’s available beyond funded programs.
• Books: JD Robb — In Death series (futuristic detective fiction).
• Share’s company: Film & Life
  — helping families preserve their stories through legacy videos and media digitization.

Want to Share Your Voice?

If you’re a patient or caregiver, you can join Patient Voice Connect to share your experiences and help shape healthcare here.

Join our email list to get new episode updates here.

Together, we can bring more voices to the table and shape the future of healthcare.

Share this episode, leave a review, and follow Patient Voice Partners on LinkedIn to help amplify more voices.