When I received the email from Dr. Lloyd Minor of Stanford School of Medicine inviting me to join their inaugural Health Futurist Leadership program, I initially thought it was a hoax. Only after I Googled his name and validated his position did I realize what an incredible opportunity I’d been given.
The program started the day after the 2025 Super Bowl. My cousin, who works for the NFL, had secured a ticket for me. We were making hotel reservations in New Orleans when I realized I had both a conflict and a choice to make: attend the Super Bowl or go to Palo Alto?
I chose Palo Alto. My beloved cousin understood my dilemma and graciously gave me her blessing.
The Stanford program restored my faith in medicine, even amid the seismic shifts in healthcare we were experiencing. It gave me a deeper understanding of the power of research and a glimpse into the extraordinary future ahead. I gained tremendous respect for the genome and the profound secrets it reveals about the human experience.
The second transformative milestone of 2025 was becoming AI certified (thank you, Alicia and Lorette Lytle). Through AI, I finally connected the dots between clinical informatics and pattern recognition, seeing how technology could amplify what I’d learned in 20 years of expert witness work reviewing preventable maternal deaths.
The most meaningful experience of 2025 was watching my Gen Z sons mature as they entered their senior year at UCF and began orchestrating their career paths in sports, moving beyond their achievements in cross country and basketball into strategic professional planning.
2025 gave me the tools to transform three decades of clinical heartbreak into innovation that can save lives. Every maternal death case I’ve reviewed, every pattern I’ve recognized, every blind spot I’ve documented, they all converged this year into something tangible: a platform that can finally interrupt the cognitive failures that steal mothers from their families.
As I step into 2026, I carry forward Stanford’s vision of what’s possible, AI’s power to see what humans miss, and my sons’ reminder that the future belongs to those bold enough to build it.
The mothers we lost aren’t just case files. They’re the “why” behind everything I’m building. 2025 was my year of transformation. 2026 will be theirs.
