Debra Roisman

Certified nurse-midwife, Alameda Health System–Highland Hospital

I had a very winding path to health care. I was a dancer and had a pretty serious injury. I stopped dancing professionally and my healing process led me into various healing arts forms, and eventually to osteopathy, and I decided that I wanted to become an osteopath myself.

I started osteopathy school and about three weeks in, I thought, I am in the wrong place. I really wanted to be working with people in health care, but I didn’t actually want to try to fix anyone; I wanted to facilitate empowerment and self-healing. Pretty much immediately I redirected toward midwifery.

I felt like Alameda Health System was a place where I could have the deepest impact on some of the most vulnerable parts of our community. I also was interested in Centering Pregnancy. I felt like that was where I could bring in all aspects of myself and my background — holistic healing, the arts, mindfulness. And I knew that Highland was working on growing their program.

What’s really special about Centering is that it’s giving space for patients to really bring their own wisdom and knowledge, and to really own that. To know themselves more deeply and to learn from each other. In doing so, they build community. Our whole goal is to draw out the knowledge of the patients, and help them know more by knowing each other.

If you come to a Centering group you can see diversity, and it feels like a place where we get to honor different perspectives and support our patients to reduce some of the most dramatic health disparities.

It is such an honor, the ways that patients let us into their hearts and their lives and allow us to see them for who they are and their vulnerabilities. And you know, they deserve absolutely the best. I feel like we’re doing a really good job offering them our best — and we still have a lot more to do.