Heather Guidone

Dr. Heather Guidone is the Director of the Center for Endometriosis Care’s (CEC) Laparoscopic Excision (LAPEX) Surgical Program, a role in which she is responsible for multidisciplinary patient-centric care, clinical research facilitation, and education and public policy endeavors to achieve better care for endometriosis and pelvic pain gynepathologies. She also coordinates the CEC’s MIGS Fellowship Program, facilitating credentialing, risk management strategies and more, and she serves as the Center’s COEMIG liaison. A Clinical Health Educator with dedicated focus on gynecology, she has served the women’s healthcare community for more than two decades. Long before the days of social media, Heather worked tirelessly to establish connections and awareness for endometriosis and pelvic pain, educate the public, and facilitate outreach in what was then a very isolated environment with little cross-talk and sorely limited collaboration between stakeholders. She went on to host groundbreaking platforms at America Online in their then newly-launched women’s health division and for Thrive@Health, among others. An outspoken professional Advocate, she has appeared in countless media over the past 25 years, including on the Emmy® Award-winning Lifetime Television. She has held numerous consultancies with many institutions and continues to lecture internationally, specializing in “bench to beltway to bedside” efforts encompassing disease education, surgical innovation, emerging technology, health policy reforms, increased health literacy and various patient-centric initiatives. She is the Recipient of the National Women’s Health Foundation “Passion in Pelvic Health” award and is an active member of the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare; the Academy of Women’s Health; the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research; the Society for Participatory Medicine; the American Society for Reproductive Medicine; the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors; the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals; AAGL and many other professional societies including the Harold P. Freeman Patient Navigation Institute. She is also a Peer Reviewer for the BMJ. Heather was previously elected to membership in the National Association of Healthcare Advocacy Consultants, wherein she remains active, and in 2011 was appointed to the prestigious President’s Council of the National Patient Advocate Foundation (NPAF) in Washington, DC. She has also served as a professional collaborator in RESOLVE’s advocacy efforts throughout the House and Senate, working at the highest levels of government and legislation to educate the country’s policymakers and strive for better reproductive and infertility research, access, and patient care.