Hi! My name is Belinda. I'm a family physician, educator, and improvisational actor in Seattle, Washington. My mission is to improve health through better communication, cognition, and wellness. I've been working on the integration of improv and medicine since 2012, and as I teach clinicians around the country about this exciting work, the requests kept coming in for a resource like this. So I started ImprovDoc as a project through The Mayutica Institute, an independent education and research organization. I still practice medicine and teach residents, when I'm not giving talks or leading workshops about improv and medicine. Busy? yep. And I love it.

When I finished my residency training, I started taking improv classes just for fun – little did I know that it would transform my life in wonderful ways. The skills I learned in improv made me a better doctor, teacher, and all around person. A few years later, when I became a patient with early-stage vulvar cancer, my life spun into turmoil, but the affirmation skills I learned in improv saved my life. (All better now!)

Improv felt like a gift to me, so it's my passion in life to share this gift with others. If you think I could contribute to your community with a keynote, workshop, training, or curricular design, I'd love to hear from you. I hope you will find that this work inspires and transforms your life in positive ways, just as it did for me. Welcome!

ImprovDog is Skylark, an English Springer Spaniel who provides snuggles and emotional support to all her humans. She loves swimming, belly rubs, naps, eating snowballs, and chasing squirrels. On stage, she is known for her expressive eyebrows and ability to "play dead" on command in front of large audiences.