Holly Atkinson

Biography

Dr. Atkinson, a gifted and noted international professional speaker, has engaged national audiences on achieving wellness for more than 20 years. She is the senior on-air Medical Correspondent and Chief of Medical Affairs for HealthiNation, the leading consumer health video network, is Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Medicine and Co-Director of the Advancing Idealism in Medicine Program at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, and is Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. With degrees in both medicine and journalism, she possesses a unique blend of experience and skill—medical expertise, media savvy and business acumen. Dr. Atkinson has worked in print, broadcast television and web-based technologies for both consumers and medical professionals and has extensive international business experience. She has extensive experience as a medical correspondent, including assignments with NBC's Today show, The CBS Morning News, Lifetime Medical Television, and the PBS health show BodyWatch. For more than 10 years, Dr. Atkinson worked as Senior VP for Lifetime Medical Television. Then, as an entrepreneur, she helped to found and ultimately became president and CEO of Reuters Health Information, Inc., a leading international health news agency. She is author of the best-selling book Women and Fatigue, has written for New Woman magazine and South Beach Diet Newsletter, and was a resident physician on Dr.Weil.com and iVillageHealth.com, both leading Internet sites. She then went on to become founding Medical Editor-in-Chief of Everydayhealth.com, before joining HealthiNation. Dr. Atkinson was a member of the original team that launched Journal Watch, a monthly summary of important medical research findings developed for practicing physicians by Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS), publisher of the New England Journal of Medicine. After writing for Journal Watch for seven years, the MMS asked her to help launch a consumer health newsletter, HealthNews. She became the founding Editor-in-Chief and remained at the helm of the newsletter for 12 years. Upon leaving HealthNews, she was founding Medical Editor-in-Chief of Everydayhealth.com, a leading health website. Dr. Atkinson devotes considerable time to a number of not-for-profit organizations and charities. She is Past President of Physicians for Human Rights, an organization that shared in the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for its effort to eradicate landmines. In 1995, Dr. Atkinson conducted a medical mission to Bosnia where she documented the health effects of landmines on civilians. She has also served on the boards of Legal Momentum, the nation's oldest and largest women's civil rights organization, the American Heart Association, and the Society for Women's Health Research. She has received the National Council of Women's Young Achievers Award; the Society for Women's Health Research's Communications Achievement Award in Women's Health, presented by then first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton; and Physicians for Human Rights' Health and Human Rights Award. Dr. Atkinson has a MD from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and a MS degree in Journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Colgate University with a BS in Biology. She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the American Medical Women's Association.

Titles

Good Health in Hard Times In this practical, reassuring and inspiring speech, Dr. Atkinson cuts through the clutter of information to give your audience the bottom line on achieving optimal health. She goes straight to the heart of matter, teaching participants where they'll get the "biggest bang for their buck." Because we all increasingly have limits on our energy and finances, Dr. Atkinson focuses on what's really important. She reveals what works, what doesn't, and where we should spend our precious time and hard-earned money to achieve optimal health. The 5 Keys to Maximum Health We are living in "a land flowing with milk and honey" and it's killing us. Our Western lifestyle drives inflammation in the body, which plays a primary role in the development of our killer diseases. Our society also promotes shallow and self-centered behavior, leading to depression and despair. Our deliverance, insists Dr. Atkinson, will come not from diet or exercise alone, but from expanding our sense of what it means to live a good life. Revolutionary new studies reveal that "doing good is good for you." Women, Stress and Fatigue: Effective Solutions to this Very Real Problem (Women, Stress and Fatigue is also presented as two separate keynotes, see below in additional consumer keynotes.) Stress and fatigue are problems that increasingly plague American women. And too often, we are not taken seriously. Increased economic hardship—added to balancing work and family, caring for aging parents, and coping with the daily onslaught of demands, just to name a few—have all contributed to unprecedented levels of stress and fatigue. But the good news is something can be done. Speaking from her own experience and myriad other women, Dr. Atkinson reveals the major energy drainers and major energy boosters, and gives powerful practical pointers on how to beat stress and tip the energy balance.