About Olga
From defending families in the Bronx to shaping how doctors listen to patients, Olga has built a career rooted in dignity, voice, and representation. Her path weaves together law, medicine, advocacy, and storytelling in ways that change lives.
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Signature Talks
The Exam Room Belongs to You
Most patients prepare for their appointments. They still leave without answers. This talk gives patients the rights, tools, and language they need to take back their time, their records, and their care — before, during, and after the visit.
It's Not All in Your Head: Medical Gaslighting and the Women Who Were Right
Women wait longer for pain treatment. They are more likely to receive a psychiatric diagnosis before a physical one. They are less likely to be believed. This talk names the pattern, traces the research, and gives patients and clinicians concrete language for what to do differently.
795,000 Reasons We Need to Talk about Diagnostic Error
That number represents deaths and permanent disabilities from misdiagnosis in the U.S. each year. This talk uses data, case narrative, and policy context to examine why diagnostic error stays under addressed, and what patient engagement can do to change that.
Workshops
The Listening Lab
Most clinical training teaches providers what to ask. This workshop teaches how to hear. Using narrative medicine tools developed at Columbia University, participants practice close listening, reflective writing, and structured dialogue to build the kind of attention that changes what happens in the room. Designed for clinical teams, medical educators, and healthcare professionals at any stage of training.
Reading, Writing, and the Medical Encounter: A Narrative Medicine Workshop
Most of us move too fast to really hear each other. This workshop slows that down. Participants read a poem, story, or artwork together, write in response to a guided prompt, and share their reflections in open, nonjudgmental discussion. The focus is not critique. It is attention — to language, to perspective, and to what becomes possible when we listen differently. This is narrative medicine practice.
Writing Illness: Reclaiming Your Story
Illness changes your relationship to your own experience. This workshop helps you find your way back to it. Using the close reading and reflective writing practices at the core of Columbia University's narrative medicine program, participants . This is not about writing well. It is about writing honestly.
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