Printable Biography of Dr. Holly G. Atkinson

Dr. Atkinson, a well-known media personality and a gifted speaker, has engaged audiences on achieving wellness for more than 20 years. She is the senior on-air Medical Correspondent and Chief Medical Editor of HealthiNation, the leading digital consumer health video network. Dr. Atkinson is also Assistant Professor of Medicine and Co-Director of the Advancing Idealism in Medicine Program at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, and 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.

Dr. Atkinson has a broad range of 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, having jump started her career in TV as a researcher for Walter Cronkite’s Universe Show on CBS. For more than 10 years, Dr. Atkinson worked as Senior Vice President 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 has recently been a frequent guest on ABC News Now.

Dr. Atkinson is an accomplished author, having written the best-selling book Women and Fatigue.  She wrote a regular health column for New Woman magazine and feature pieces for The South Beach Diet Newsletter. Dr. Atkinson has been a resident physician on Dr.Weil.com and iVillageHealth.com, both leading web sites.

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, one of the leading health websites, and a regular columnist for the site.

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; the Physicians for Human Rights’ Health and Human Rights Award; and the Unitarian Universalist’s UN Award for Human Rights.

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.

Speech Topics

The 5 Keys to Your Best 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.”

In this hard-hitting and life-changing session, participants discover how to:

• Achieve their best physical health, including goals of losing weight, looking better and feeling younger; 
• Cool the flames of inflammation and unleash natural sources of healing and energy;
• Infuse purpose and meaning into their lives thereby creating more joy and fulfillment.

This speech delivers the bottom line on how to achieve maximum health in these difficult times.

Women, Stress and Fatigue: Best Solutions
(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.

Participants will learn:

• A potent method that reveals their sources of stress and fatigue;
• What to do to boost their mental and physical energy levels;
• How to build energy reserves so there’s something left for themselves.

Women come away from this speech having laughed a lot and learned a lot not only about how to conquer fatigue, but how to live their best lives.

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.

In this session, participants will learn:

• Which lifestyle behaviors really deserve our attention;
• What is “must have” versus what is dispensable;
• Where to find the best values—in food, vitamins, and medications.

This speech is a must hear for anyone interested in staying healthy in hard times! 

ADDITIONAL CONSUMER KEYNOTES:
Be Your Own Chief Longevity Officer
Best Medical Treatments for Women
Conquering Heart Disease - How to Prevent the #1 Killer
Going Green, Going Healthy
How to Live The Long Good Life
The Best Diet for Women
The Obesity Epidemic: Why America is Overfed and Undernourished
The Third Body: Nurturing Your Relationships
Women, Chocolate and Sex
On Womenfluence - The Power of Women to Promote Maximum Health