Doug Oliver BA, MSW

Doug Oliver is a writer, storyteller, healthcare consultant, and patient advocate in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated Cum Laude with a Master’s Degree in Social Work from University of New England, and has an extensive career in medical social work, health care regulatory compliance consulting, grant writing, program development, gerontology, and therapeutic case advocacy. In August of 2015, he also became a stem cell patient. At age 32, Doug was diagnosed with macular degeneration, a disease that attacks the retina, causing blindness of central vision. He became legally blind at age 45. In 2015, after undergoing autologous bone-marrow stem cell therapy in both eyes, he regained much of his lost vision. He received his driver’s license 5 months later.

Doug’s story has reached millions, including international broadcasts, interviews with the national press, and countless affiliate television and news media outlets. In 2016, his miracle was revealed to Pope Francis. In late 2015, press coverage caught the attention of Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, and Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D., who engaged him in helping to craft key patient provisions in the 21st Century Cures Act. ​

He was invited to Washington, DC to hold meetings with key U.S. Senators and Representatives from both sides of the aisle, with a goal of galvanizing efforts to boost funding and initiate regulatory reform. As a result of the Cures Act passing with record bipartisan support in December of 2016, millions of patients will soon have cellular therapies like he received available to them.