“I was a healthcare professional. I heard the stories—hundreds of them. I trained in social sciences and research, determined to investigate the very issues, I never expected to become the patient—living the reality, the unwilling participant observer, experiencing the horror firsthand.
I lost everything—my business, my hobbies, nearly my sanity. But after five years of research, I’m no longer just a witness. This is my mission: to force change and expose the harm done by a system that claims to help, heal, and do no harm.”
Hi there,
My name is Amanda. For over twenty years, I was an allied health care professional, and partway through that time, I earned a Master’s in social sciences. I had unknowingly become an “accidental researcher in the field” as hundreds of my clients shared their stories—accounts of medical dismissal, invalidation, ageism, sexism, and other deeply ingrained failures of the system. I planned to research it formally.
Then I got sick. Very sick.
The truth of my condition was right there, in black and white, in my medical notes. I was more than capable of advocating for myself. Yet I was met with dismissal at every turn. I was told it was “just a coincidence,” even as I laid out the undeniable facts. I wrote bullet-pointed letters, pleaded for someone to listen. Instead, I was shut down, ignored, labeled, and abandoned in unbearable pain and distress—distress that only reinforced their fiction about me: that I was simply “anxious.” Their narrative became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Over the next year, I deteriorated into the abyss. One night, I woke to find I had lost the use of both thumbs and could barely lift my arms. Eventually, I was diagnosed with Systemic Lupus—a serious, life-altering disease and at the same time diagnosed with skin cancer… It had been over eight years since the original appointment and eighteen months since I’d started pleading with them for help…
I had been fighting for my life. And along the way, I started documenting and researching—not just to understand, but to save myself. And I did.
After my own experience, people I’d known for years came forward with their own stories—stories that shattered me all over again.
This mission is the culmination of five years of research into a question that should haunt us all:
How does a system that claims its first principle is “do no harm” continue to harm in plain sight—and yet nothing changes?
I come in peace, not anger. But silence is no longer an option. Fear of being trolled, dismissed, or attacked cannot outweigh the urgency of speaking up.
This is not an attack on individuals. This is a demand for systemic change.
This is about a culture, a structure—a way of thinking so ingrained that even many doctors and health professionals, the ones who truly want to help, find themselves trapped within it. I do not believe that most people enter these professions intending to silence, ignore, or diminish those in their care.
But good intentions do not erase harm. And this harm must end with us.
To suggest that medicine is truly “doing no harm” while this continues, may be one of the greatest lies we are living with.
If you want to speak to me, share your story or collaborate with me please get in touch my email is at the top of the website, alternatively you can use the contact form… I do reply to all emails…