​Dr. Susan Abernethy is a trained primary care physician. She is the founder of Mudança Healing. Dr. Susan's path to this work is not a straight line — it's a deeply human one. She began her medical journey in women's health, also training as a birth doula and Community Health Worker. She developed a profound appreciation for the complexity of life's most vulnerable moments. From there she turned her focus upstream, spending more than 15 years leading Social Determinant of Health and Patient Advocacy nonprofits  — including serving as CEO of a Make-A-Wish chapter.
 

It was in that role that something crystallized. We pour tremendous care into preparing people for the beginning of life. We have almost no equivalent for the end. And yet birth and death share more than we acknowledge — both are labor, both are transition, both ask everything of the individual and the ones beside them.

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That recognition set her on a new path. She now integrates her medical background, doula training, and complementary modalities — including flower essences and Atma Buti sound healing techniques — into a model of end-of-life care that tends to the whole person, not just their medical needs.
 

A passionate advocate for death literacy, Dr. Susan believes that access to end-of-life knowledge is a health equity issue — and she brings that conviction to every stage, workshop, and bedside she is invited into. She also serves on her regional Health and Human Services Advisory Board, extending this work into community-level policy and planning.