Testimonials
“Vanessa is passionate about her advocacy work and a big supporter of the empowered patient movement. Dedicated professionals like Vanessa can make the use of social media in healthcare truly meaningful and successful in South Africa.”
Dr Bertalan Mesko, PhD
Medical Futurist
Author of The Guide to the Future of Medicine | Speaker | Consultant
Managing director of Webicina.com
Founder of The Social MEDia Course
Blog | LinkedIn | Twitter
“Vanessa Carter is one of the exceptional e-Patients I’ve had the great privilege to know thanks to my work with Doctors 2.0 & You. She has turned a personal challenge into the opportunity to be one of the brightest lights around. Creative, hardworking and generous.”
Denise Silber, President of Doctors2.0 & You, Paris (www.doctors20.com | #doctors20) & Basil Strategies
“I have the greatest admiration for Vanessa Carter. When a car accident damaged her face, she discovered huge inadequacies in South Africa’s medical system. Instead of rolling over and feeling sorry for herself, she rose up and began to educate the medical profession from within, using her powerful social media platform. People like Vanessa change the world.
Vanessa and I have something in common: both our faces have been altered by experiences beyond our control. It’s not easy to endure society’s reaction to our facial differences, especially when we can’t get proper respect and acknowledgement from the medical profession. Vanessa is working hard to not only change the health care system within South Africa, but also to improve patient advocacy around the world, and for that, I admire her greatly.”
Dawn Shaw
Author of Facing up to it – www.facinguptoit.com
Speaker & Facial Difference advocate (U.S.A)
“Vanessa Carter is an inspiration. The commitment and energy that she has with regards to her advocacy work have been impressive, and her determination to make a difference for others in South Africa is self-evident. She has rapidly evolved from someone seeking answers to her own health questions to becoming a leader in the e-Patient movement who has caught the attention of healthcare leaders the world over on the social web.”
Thomas M. Lee,
Partner/Co-founder of Symplur, LLC – www.symplur.com
Managing Partner of The Fox Group, LLC
“Vanessa Carter is one of the best and brightest of a new breed of e-Patients who interact with healthcare professionals at the intersection of social media. She courageously shares her personal story of triumph over adversity in the hope that it will help others on their own journey of healing and empowerment.”
Marie Ennis-O’Connor,
Healthcare Social Media Consultant,
e-Patient Scholar @StanfordMedX
“When I first met Vanessa, I was answering email for a facial different patient advocacy website. Vanessa wanted to be a facial difference patient advocate, but she wasn’t sure how to go about it. She was hesitant, uncertain, less than confident, but so very rich in caring and passion for her topic, and asking for help. Since those tentative beginnings, Vanessa has blossomed, rapidly and beautifully, still brave enough to ask for help, still caring enough to take all the help she receives and tries to help others with what she has received. She is, in my experience, someone who is genuinely trying to make a difference.”
Patricia F. Anderson
Emerging medical technology librarian – Michigan University, Ann Arbour, U.S.A
“Vanessa has always been a dynamic person who started a business at the age of 19 yrs and never looked back. A serious car accident left half her face in tatters and whilst the norm would be to fall apart at this life-changing event, she pulled through her most inner strength and focused not on herself, but on others who have facial differences and their challenges in our medical society. She has been a stalwart in searching and networking with doctors around the world in search of solutions in reconstruction and its challenges. Vanessa stands out as a fearless person looking for answers in places some of us have yet to discover. Her SA ambassadorial title is well deserved and we look forward to hearing great things from her as she grows her organization as a platform #hcsmSA for medical change.”
Shariefa Allie – Nieftagodien
Operations Director XL Travel
Regional Director of Inspiring Woman Gauteng
“We at Changing Faces really admire the commitment and energy with which Vanessa has set about raising public and professional awareness of facial conditions – and she’s a great champion of what needs to be done to bring about a world that respects face equality.”
James Partridge, Founder and Chief Executive of Changing Faces, www.changingfaces.org.uk
“On behalf of MEDITECH, I would like to thank you very much for coming in to speak to us on Wednesday. Your presentation was very interesting. You are doing amazing work, we wish you all the best in this regard.”
Meditech South Africa
www.meditech.co.za
“I would like to thank you so very much for your support at the Telkom Career Day last Friday. I was not able to sit throughout your presentation but I noted, for that moment I spent, that the learners were engaged and interested in the content of your discussion.
I appreciate all the challenges we had but am grateful that you sacrificed your time to inspire the learners. I thank you, I know for sure that you have ignited some inspiration even if you touched two learners, that is good enough. Have a lovely day and God bless you many times.”
Phelelia Sekele
Senior Programme Officer
Sci-Bono Discovery Centre
Johannesburg, South Africa