Dr. Eeks: Not made in a lab nor a star of a scifi series (yet)
(Yes, it’s a nickname. It comes from my real name, ErinKate Stair…and here it is with the credentials I earned if you’re into that sorta thing: ErinKate Stair, MPH, MD. ;) )
Back to ma roots! Lives in Pa with my bettter half.
If I’m not creating, I’m dead.
My first love is storytelling.
(If it’s in the woods around a campfire, even better. Isn’t there something magical about a story and a campfire? ;))
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My podcast is not connected with any institutions. The podcast team is me, my dog, and a few solid freelancers. That’s it.
Good Mantras to live by:
“When you can’t laugh, laugh.”
“The truth sits alone at lunch.”
“Never get in a tinkling contest with a skunk.”
“The art of war is winning without firing a shot.”
“It’s better to be alone than wish you were.”
“Never take for granted that people understand you.”
“What matters is who you are today. Not who you were in the past.”
“I’m not everyone’s cup of tea…but I’m someone’s 5AM shot of Apple Cider Vinegar.”
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(The writings & opinions on this website are my own (Dr. Eeks) and not reflective of anyone I work or consult for.)
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FYI: For the blog, I write the blogs that are NOT listed in the “Other-Ad” category. The “Other-Ad” category in the blog section is MOSTLY advertisement blogs written to promote specific links. They support my dog Barnaby’s treat habit and the Causes or Cures podcast. I do not scientifically review any of them and from the ones I have read, they are usually terrible. But the dog needs his treats.
Here is where I switch to 3rd Person for some reason:
Background: Eeks grew up in a small town called Trucksville, attending Catholic school and earning the title of high school valedictorian. Most of her days were filled with playing soccer, getting into trouble with strict nuns and priests, violin lessons, martial arts, and trespassing on adjacent farms to run and hide in the corn stalks. (Truly a child of the corn.) With a veterinarian father, animal rescue became second nature. Her childhood was peppered with memorable moments, from skunk, bird and squirrel rescues to transfusing the family’s hemophiliac dog on the dining room table to collecting roadkill for Nevermore, the family’s raven. Nevermore, grounded by a hunter’s bullet despite several surgeries, lived in a backyard flight pen and had a special love for groundhog—he’d lose his mind and hop across his perch with excitement whenever a run-over one was brought home. (You’re welcome for that mental image, but I was the one who had to pick up the groundhog.)
Somewhere between corn fields and Catholic guilt, she ended up graduating from a well-known military academy on the esteemed Hudson River, where she was recruited to play Division 1 soccer for the USMA Lady Knights. There, she played soccery, majored in both chemistry and environmental engineering, ran on the marathon team (it beat drill and was before she developed asthma), and was commissioned an Army officer. Along the way, she taught bayonet and close-quarter combat to fellow cadets (yes, she got dropped on her head more than a few times) and painted the female latrine in Bradley Barracks a bold hot pink—though she suspects the Higher-Ups have since reverted it to regulation beige.
Health Stuff, Since this is a health website:
After earning degrees in chemistry and environmental engineering, Eeks headed to medical school in Philadelphia, fully intending to become a doctor in the traditional sense—mostly because that’s what her mother wanted. Life, however, had other plans.
What followed was a chapter she now describes as an existential breakdown: bulimia, depression, unresolved school trauma, and losing both her sense of purpose and, for a time, her faith in God. She shocked everyone by leaving medical school and, like many people who are only a few difficult decisions away from becoming a statistic, found herself in a place she never imagined she’d be.
She eventually found her way back. Once she was healthy enough, she finished her medical degree.
Some of that chapter still lingers. She occasionally has nightmares, and there are parts of that experience words don’t quite reach. But it also changed how she sees resilience, recovery, forgiveness, grace, and the very human side of health.
Martial arts. Long runs. Writing. Creativity. Rebuilding her faith. Treating bulimia like an addiction instead of a bad habit. Those things helped. So did fear. Contrary to popular opinion, she doesn’t think fear is always the villain. Sometimes it’s the thing that finally convinces you to change.
She shares this part of her story because too many people believe one terrible chapter means they’ve ruined the whole book. Life doesn’t work that way. People lose themselves. People find themselves again. Sometimes they’re even better for the detour.
Some people will judge you—sometimes the very people you expected would understand. Human nature, folks. You’ll be fine. ;)
Her novel, Manic Kingdom, draws from this chapter of her life, but it is a work of fiction. Events, details, and characters have been changed and reimagined.
Moving on…
She later earned a Global Health Leadership Scholarship to NYU, where she completed her MPH in global health. By then, it had become clear that traditional hospital medicine wasn’t where she thrived. She felt soul-crushed in hospitals. Too many people were showing up with illnesses that could have been prevented years earlier. Maybe it was her inner cynic, but it felt like patching holes in a ship that kept sailing toward an iceberg.
Public health, on the other hand, felt like getting upstream. Stop shit before it takes root. She liked the idea of that.
It offered a way to focus on prevention, systems, and the bigger forces shaping health long before people ever landed in hospital beds. So despite the debt, raised eyebrows, and “you’ll end up on the street” phone calls from family, she chose the pathos less traveled (she meant path, but also maybe pathos).
Her two cents? Don’t let anyone, your ego, a shallow definition of success or piles of debt bully you into a version of yourself that feels counterfeit and crushes your soul. It’s worth reminding yourself that life is ridiculously short, strange, and unrepeatable. Sure, take it seriously…, but not so seriously that you can’t see how little we understand about our existence.
And it’s important to remember this: Linear looks good on paper, but alignment is what lights your soul up.
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During her time in public health school, she worked on a fascinating research project with an organization focused on modeling and predicting emerging infectious diseases worldwide. Her curiosity around how human interaction with other species and the environment can spark new health challenges continues to drive her work.
Today, she works as a public health contractor and health communication consultant, helping organizations make sense of complex science—turning epidemiologic insights into clear communication, better questions, and more informed action. She also helps manage communications, media, and requests for her mom and dad’s veterinary hospital.
Public Health Stuff:
Eeks is a public health professional with experience in scientific communication and applied epidemiology. She’s also a professional question asker. She spends her time translating complex science into stories people can understand through expert interviews, strategic communication, creativity, humor, and evidence-based storytelling.
She’s especially interested in the strange, overlooked, and unexpectedly fascinating corners of public health—from obscure outbreaks and historical health oddities to the questions everyone else forgot to ask. (Check out her Public Health is Weird series.)
In 2025, she was inducted as an alumni into NYU’s School of Global Health’s Delta Beta chapter of the national Delta Omega Honorary Society for her work in the field of public health.
Public Health & Digital Health
Before diving into her current work, Dr. Eeks managed the evidence base and scientific communications for a doctor-owned global digital health startup headquartered in the UK, with an office in NYC, focused on scalable, population-level interventions for chronic disease, depression, and long-term health conditions. Her role spanned randomized controlled trials, epidemiological studies, and public-facing communication for innovative programs using tools such as gaming and digital cognitive behavioral therapy.
These interventions targeted chronic conditions and related drivers including addiction, obesity, poor sleep, anxiety, depression, and other long-term health challenges, reaching populations across the US, UK, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, and Israel, with strong outcomes.
While she values the scalability and creativity of digital health solutions, Dr. Eeks believes effective public health responses must balance technology with real-world, human-centered connection and human intimacy. (But if you are in a relationship with an AI dude/dudette, you do you.)
The Causes or Cures Podcast
She hosts the independent Causes or Cures Public Health Podcast, where she interviews top researchers, doctors, scientists, health and wellness leaders, and sometimes just “characters” from around the globe about the world’s biggest health concerns. It is now ranked in the top 2.5% of podcasts by ListenNotes, and was listed as a top public health podcast by millions podcasts here. As the show has grown, she’s expanded it to include several recurring series, including Public Health is Weird, which explores the stranger side of public health history; WTF Health News, a look at bizarre and thought-provoking health headlines from around the world; and Eeks Speakeasy, where curiosity occasionally wanders beyond traditional public health into unexpected conversations and stories.
She funds it herself with the support of amazing listeners. She finds the guests, schedules, studies the topic, records, edits and produces each episode. It is a lot of work, but she enjoys learning new things with all the interesting people and straight-up characters she gets to chat with.
While she started accepting sponsorships and underwriting opportunities in 2024, Causes or Cures is NOT owned or affiliated with any school, health journal, not-for-profit, pharmaceutical, biootech or wellness company. She does not endorse any of her guests views. Anything she says on the podcast is her personal opinion and not affiliated in any way, shape or form with organizations she works for or consults for. (Underwriting and Sponsorships per episode are possible, if she digs the company and the message.)
She also hosts the TrialSite News Farrago Podcast and is always open to guest ideas.
Select Publications related to projects I’ve worked or consulted on, as part of a great team:
*Causes or Cures Podcast listed as a top Public Health Podcast in the US by Million Podcast.
*Abstract accepted for 2026 American Public Health Association (APHA) Conference:
*Abstract Presented at the National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media, 2025
Engaging Former NFL Players to Drive Colorectal Cancer Awareness and Screening
*Consulting Public Health Expert for: Engaging Arts and Culture for Vaccines
*Abstract Presented at the National Cancer Registrars Association, NCRA-Winter-2023_v8.pdf ( p 170, Standards and Registry Operations Winner) Implementation of a Standardized Template to Improve the Timeliness and Consistency of Early Case Reporting for Pediatric, Adolescent, and Young Adult Cancer Cases to the Rhode Island Cancer Registry – PMC
*The Narrative “CDC’s Work to Transform Childhood Cancer Case Reporting”
Interested in Working Together?
I help uncover the stories behind the science, through thoughtful interviews, engaging conversations, and evidence-based storytelling that makes complex research easier to understand (without watering it down) & helps connect to your target audience.
Perhaps we can help tell your story together, but Click here first.
If you are interested in underwriting or sponsoring the Causes or Cures Podcast, email me directly: erin@bloomingwellness.com
If you are interested in being a guest on the Causes or Cures Podcast, email me at: erin@bloomingwellness.com.
If you want relationship advice, do not email me.
Rando Tidbits*
*Subject to Change
Her favorite place to be is the woods.
Dr. Eeks laughs a lot, often when it’s inappropriate. If you’re unsure, ask before you take her seriously.
Her dog Barnaby is the best. He is the Chief Everything Officer (CEO) of Blooming Wellness.
She’s a fatalist. The good news about being a fatalist is that you know it will end soon.
She’s been told that she’s on the spectrum, but aren’t we all???? (Like if you aren’t on the spectrum, where are you?)
She has asthma that developed in her early twenties after a weird virus. It sucks but she makes the best of it using a combination of conventional medicine and quackery.
She loves to write.
Dr. Eeks practices minimalism. (Furniture…what?) She wishes minimalism was cool when she was poor. Then she could have said she was a minimalist, not poor.
As a hobby, she likes to study the medicinal nature of plants & herbs.
Her favorite hobbies include: adventuring, running, soccer, ghost hunting, martial arts, coffee-fueled conversations, swimming, yoga (including face yoga and laughter yoga), playing the violin, podcasting, meditation, reading, soccer, finding the humor in life, getting a kick out of the little things, interval training, writing, animal rescue, gardening and bird-watching.
She is a BIG live theatre fan and will almost always go to a play. Also, a huge Grateful Dead fan.
She’s known for turning pathos into humor and mastering the mundane. It’s a shit, short world, have some fun.
She’s played the violin for years and started when she was 6 in the Catholic choir. Lately she’s only into pizzicato and fiddling techniques. Everyone in her family plays a musical instrument, except mom. She yells a lot though, and sometimes it’s even in tune. Her father, a Marine vet, is a professional trombonist when he’s not at the animal practice.
Her father is a wildly popular veterinarian & consistently wins Best Veterinarian in the area.
She is mostly plant-based, likes to cook simple, healthy meals, and is a regular at the Farmers Market. The best thing about the Farmers Market is hearing the farmers’ stories.
She gets up really early and goes to bed early.
She is famous for her Irish exits. #sorrynotsorry
She follows a very strict wellness routine. It annoys her too. She incorporates plenty of natural and complementary approaches into her own life, but she’s careful not to confuse “this works for me” with “this will work for everyone.” She doesn’t promote or sell supplements because, at the end of the day, the industry is too unregulated for an endorsement. It’s like the “EAT ME” scene in Alice in Wonderland.
She dislikes censorship, because she thinks it ultimately does more harm than good in a democracy, and we are better off teaching people how to think critically about any and all information. In the digital age, it’s impossible to try to control everything a person reads or sees. Plus, critical thinking is very vintage these days, as is listening. Make vintage great again?
She doesn’t like loud noises or loud conversations. Noise pollution is legit.
She thinks Big Pharma has way too much power & influence over health policy, public health & healthcare and strongly feels that research agendas need to focus more on prevention.
She’s left-handed, and as all of the soccer coaches she’s played against know, very left-footed on the field as well.
She loves the game of soccer & was a Division 1 soccer recruit in college. Her travel team, the Dragons, was one of the best in the state of PA. Talk about great memories. :)
She despises factory farms. My God, they are horrid. They are the worst of humanity.
Most of Dr. Eeks’ charitable causes involve animals, mainly because they are better than humans. #justsayin
She thinks we take life and ourselves too seriously. I mean, when the sun melts and kills Earth (or a nuke does it first), who gives a shit about your trophies, looks, salary or credentials? Plus, think about all the life in space…yet to be discovered by us…that probably flies by Earth and thinks, “What idiots.”
Intellectual humility goes a long way.
She doesn’t really believe in time or age, and if those are delusional beliefs, she’s cool with’em.
She believes in a higher power or at least is very, very hopeful. If that’s a delusion, she’s cool wit’it.
Love is everything.
PHILOSOPHY STUFF:
Dr. Eeks is deeply passionate about promoting common-sense health and wellness, driven by a fire to empower people from all walks of life to take control of their health, make positive lifestyle changes, and live happier, more fulfilling lives. She firmly believes that anyone (no matter their budget) can lead a healthier life. That’s why she gets frustrated when wellness is often marketed as a luxury brand filled with expensive products, supplements, detoxes, cleanses, and retreats. For her, wellness needs to be more inclusive. After all, research shows that people with lower incomes often face more health challenges than those with higher incomes. Making wellness accessible and affordable is one of her core public health goals with this website.
Healing can be approached in many ways: some focus on the body, others on the mind or spirit, and some emphasize the mind-body connection. Dr. Eeks prefers to take a holistic approach, focusing on the connection between mind, body, and spirit. And while it may not be the trendiest viewpoint, she does believe in a Higher Power guiding that connection.
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