Every week I sit down to write this and I think about the same thing: advocacy is not a job title. It is a posture. It is how you show up, who you make room for, and whether you are willing to do the slow, unglamorous work of building trust with people the system has already failed. This week three people reminded me of that in three very different ways. Pull up their profiles. Follow their work. And if you know someone who deserves to be in this space next week, nominate them at the bottom.
Melissa Buffalo LinkedIn
Melissa Buffalo, CEO of the American Indian Cancer Foundation, said something this week that I have not been able to shake: culture is prevention. Read that again. Not culture as a nice add-on to the real work. Culture as the foundation of it. She frames cancer not as a discrete event but as a continuous journey — prevention, screening, treatment, survivorship, healing — all connected, all deserving of care. And she talks honestly about walking alongside people through every part of that journey, including loss.
What stayed with me most was what she said about trust. When Native people feel seen, heard, and respected, they show up for screening. They come back for follow-up. They stay connected to care. That is not a small thing. That is the entire ballgame. Too much of the healthcare system is still asking people to come meet it where it is, to fit themselves into structures that were never built with them in mind. Melissa is doing the opposite, and the difference between those two approaches is the difference between health equity as a talking point and health equity as something real.
Danielle Ripley-Burgess LinkedIn
Danielle Ripley-Burgess, COO of GI Cancers Alliance, has been posting all week from VOICE London, and if you have not been following along, go back and read the whole thread. She went deep — colorectal cancer clinical trials, biomarkers, liquid biopsies, the PRESSURE Consortium doing cross-European work on esophageal cancer. This was not surface-level conference content. She was in the room for the hard science conversations and she brought us with her.
One thing she shared has been sitting with me: the NHS mails a FIT test to every person in the UK when they turn 50. Every single one. No phone call to make, no appointment to schedule, no system to navigate. It just arrives. Imagine what our screening numbers could look like if we made it that easy. This is exactly why it matters for advocates to go deep on the science. The more we understand, the harder it is to talk past us. The more we know, the better the questions we bring into rooms where decisions are being made. Danielle is a model for what that looks like.
Matt Toresco LinkedIn
Matt Toresco used his platform this week to do the exact thing he was talking about. He did not just discuss amplification — he amplified someone. He shared a conversation with Bridget Dandaraw-Seritt, and her words are the ones I want to close on: don’t get in the way, amplify their voices.
There is a version of patient advocacy where organizations invite patients to the table but still run the meeting. Where patients are consulted but not really heard. Where the work gets done around them rather than with them. Bridget named that dynamic clearly, and Matt gave her the space to do it. His closing question is one worth sitting with long after the post scrolls out of view: what would change if more organizations treated patients as partners and leaders instead of guests at the table? I think the honest answer is: almost everything. That is why this work matters. That is why people like Matt matter.
If this issue connected with you, please subscribe and share it with someone in your orbit who is doing this work. And if you know an advocate — a patient, a caregiver, a community builder, anyone doing real work in real communities — nominate them for next week. Comment below or reach out at advocacyatwork.com. This newsletter exists because of the people in it, and there are so many more stories worth telling.