My name is Dr. Sharisse Stephenson. I am a neurologist, and I used to work at Bon Secours Mercy Health in Hampton Roads, Virginia. One day, my career changed forever. I had a terrifying experience in clinic. I was cornered by a large, aggressive male patient, and afterward I developed PTSD. I did what physicians are told to do — I asked for help. I asked for accommodations so I could continue working in a safe clinical environment and keep caring for my patients. Instead, Sun

A physician’s perspective on how one honest conversation could have prevented years of retaliation, lawsuits, and patient harm — and what real leadership looks like when humanity comes first. If I were the CEO, I would have just talked to me. I would have asked simple questions: What’s wrong? How can we fix this? How can we support you? I would have said: You don’t have to go through this alone. We have physician wellness resources. Here’s how to access them. I would have met

I went to Bon Secours with good intentions. I wanted to serve patients, build a better neurology clinic, and bring consistent neurological care to a community that desperately needed it. I believed reason would win — that someone in leadership would eventually recognize that patients deserve access to care, and physicians deserve a safe environment to provide it. Instead, I met retaliation. After a near workplace-violence incident, I requested an ADA accommodation for a safe

Bon Secours and Sun Life found out: I’m not alone. I didn’t know how I was going to make it through. After months of gaslighting, retaliation, and watching my identity as a physician be stripped away by institutions that once claimed to support me, I wasn’t sure what would be left. But something unexpected happened. I kept showing up. And so did the people — and pets — who saw me, held me, helped me breathe, and made sure I didn’t disappear. What they thought was isolation be

⚠️ Trigger Warning: This post discusses workplace violence, PTSD, disability denial, and psychological harm. Please take care while reading. My name is Dr. Sharisse Stephenson . I developed PTSD after a near workplace-violence event. What followed was not care, compassion, or protection — it was obstruction, delay, and silence. And I need the people making these decisions to understand something very clearly: these are not abstract choices. They have real, human consequences.

I’ve never been good at pretending. I’ve never been good at smiling in people’s faces when I knew they were doing something wrong. I don’t know how to “just go along with it” for the sake of peace. If something isn’t right, I say so. If someone helps me, I show gratitude. If someone hurts me, I tell the truth about it. I don’t dress it up in flowers or corporate-speak. For a long time, people told me that was a weakness. Even my own mom would say, “You need to learn to be mor

⚠️ Trigger Warning: This post discusses physician suicide, workplace retaliation, and moral injury. Please take care while reading. I’ve lost multiple medical school classmates to suicide. That is not a statistic to me. Those were people I studied with, trained beside, laughed with, and imagined growing old in medicine alongside. And after transitioning from private practice into an employed physician role, I realized — very quickly — how easily I could have become one of tho

A job can be lost. A vocation cannot be erased. I am still a doctor. When I was a teenager, I went to a church service with my mom. Pastor Smedley preached about the difference between a job and a vocation. A job, he said, is where you go to make a dollar. A vocation is where God places you — a calling, a purpose you’re meant to exercise. He told the young people in the congregation to approach their jobs like a vocation: work with integrity, treat it as something bigger than

I never wanted a war. I never wanted lawsuits, retaliation claims, or to become a whistleblower. I never imagined my name would be attached to federal filings or advocacy networks. All I wanted was to help build a great neurology clinic — one that expanded access, delivered excellent care, and truly served the community. When I arrived, I was hopeful. I was motivated. I was ready to pour myself into patient care and help grow services that would change lives. The Dream vs. th

We hear the term “independent commission”  all the time. It sounds official. Important. Trustworthy. But what happens when an independent commission behaves badly — denies people their rights, ignores the law, or refuses basic accommodations? What happens when independence turns into immunity ? When Everyone Shrugs For most state agencies, there is at least some  chain of accountability. If an agency denies access or violates rights, you can escalate: The governor’s office S

When I opened the termination letter from Bon Secours, most people would expect me to crumble. Instead, in a strange, fierce way, I felt relief. Relief because I was finally out of a workplace that treated safety like a performance metric and punished anyone brave enough to ask for basic accommodations. Relief because I no longer had to choose between my health and feeding myself. Relief because the slow, institutional strangling had finally stopped. But that relief came with

It’s almost funny now. The Virginia State Bar. A judge. Opposing counsel. Even newly assigned defense attorneys. They’ve all leaned on the same dismissive line: “She’s confused.” Apparently, asking for basic decency and legal rights qualifies as confusion. What They Call Confusion If you suffer a psychological injury on the job, why wouldn’t  you expect access to the award-winning physician wellness services your employer proudly advertises? Why threaten instead of treat? Why

When a junior attorney told me, “Nobody cares,”  I realized I was standing at a fork in the road. Money—or silence. I expected the call to be tough. What I didn’t expect was how much it would sting. This wasn’t an intake coordinator brushing me off. This was one of the attorneys—junior, yes, but speaking on behalf of a nationally known firm. The partners had reviewed my case. The name on the door had reviewed my case. They had sued my employer before. They knew the patterns.

From ADA violations to taxpayer waste, Virginia keeps daring someone to hold it accountable. When the Real Housewives line “Who’s gonna check me, boo?”  first hit TV, it was shade — a reminder of who held power in the room. But the more I dig into Virginia’s record on disability rights, the more I realize that’s exactly how the Commonwealth operates. Every time the ADA comes knocking. Every time a person with a disability asks for something basic. Every time taxpayers demand

In everyday life, the rules are simple. If you say something that’s factually untrue — and you know it’s untrue — that’s a lie. But in the courtroom? Different rules apply. The Language Game I’ve been representing myself pro se  against a powerful institution. In that process, opposing counsel filed statements that were, by any ordinary definition, false. Not debatable. Not opinion. Factually untrue and provably so. Out in the real world, we’d call that what it is: lying. But

Medicine has been the central part of my identity for nearly my entire adult life. I’ve never had a season when I wasn’t working, when I wasn’t practicing, when I wasn’t caring for patients. Healing wasn’t just my career — it was my calling. Then I spoke up about patient safety. And retaliation followed. I was forced onto leave I didn’t ask for and didn’t want. My ability to practice medicine — the very thing that gave my life meaning — was taken from me. The people who reta

Most people think of an insurance denial as a single moment — a letter saying, “We won’t pay.” But what I’ve learned is this: The denial is just the opening move. The real  corporate strategy is to drag things out until you run out of money, run out of energy, or run out of hope. The Corporate Playbook 1. Deny, Delay, Defend First, benefits are denied. Then payments become inconsistent, or vanish entirely. The injured person is thrown into financial and emotional chaos. 2. Ex

Sometimes it feels overwhelming when people celebrate me for my advocacy work. The truth is, this was never the role I wanted for myself. I was content being a physician. I loved taking care of patients — that was my joy. Every visit, every phone call, every telemedicine appointment fed me. Patients thought I was helping them, but in reality, they were giving me life. When that was taken from me — after I spoke up about patient safety and was forced onto unwanted leave — it w

Trigger warning: discussion of workplace trauma, retaliation, and bureaucratic harm. Most people don’t celebrate becoming “unemployed. ”But for me, this week, it felt like a small miracle. After surviving a near workplace-violence incident, I asked for the most basic protection any worker should expect: a safe setting to do my job. Instead of accommodations, I was boxed out. I wasn’t allowed to work for the hospital where I was under contract. I wasn’t allowed to work anywher

Trigger warning: discussion of PTSD, harassment, and bureaucratic harm. I’m not “fixed.” I’m in IOP. I still get panic attacks. I still have nights when I can’t eat. One email from Cowboy Bill can shove me right back into the unsafe mental space I’ve fought so hard to climb out of. But here’s the truth nobody warned me about: Trauma didn’t just break me. It uncovered parts of me I didn’t know existed. It forced open a stubborn streak. A voice. A ridiculous, chaotic sense of