PhD, Patient Insights Board Member
Medidata
Phyllisa Deroze is a global diabetes patient advocate on the Medidata Patient Insights Board. She’s employed as the Director of Content Strategy and Research at dQ&A. She began blogging after being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2011. A year later she founded Black Diabetic Info, a website dedicated to increasing awareness of cultural-competent diabetes information from around the African Diaspora. In 2019, after becoming extremely ill and learned that she had been misdiagnosed with type 2 diabetes for eight years and lives with Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults, a form of type 1 diabetes.
Phyllisa has graced the cover of Health Monitor magazine and was featured in Diabetic Living. Her passion for patient advocacy is found on her social media channels, essays, and speeches that she has given in five countries.
Considered one of the most prolific writers on the representation of diabetes in African American literature, Phyllisa builds community through storytelling and drawing on a Ph.D. in English Literature, a ten-year career as a Professor, her Fulbright Scholar expertise, and her lived experiences. Her recent publication, The Daily News Blues is a flash fiction story highlighting the intersectionality of COVID-19, mental health, and diabetes.
