Sarah Thebarge
Sarah Thebarge is a speaker, blogger, author and physician assistant who studied medicine at Yale School of Medicine, and journalism at Columbia University.
Her first book, The Invisible Girls, is a memoir that weaves her story of nearly dying of breast cancer in her 20’s together with the story of a Somali refugee family she met on a train in Portland, Oregon, as she was recovering from her cancer treatments. Her latest book, WELL, details the time she spent practicing medicine at a hospital in Togo, West Africa, which the United Nations ranked the Least Happy Country in the World. In WELL, Sarah uses medicine as a metaphor for how each of us can help to heal our beautiful, broken world.
The Invisible Girls is a World Magazine Notable Book, and was also chosen as the First Year Experience book by Mississippi State University.
Sarah’s blog was featured by MSNBC.com. Her writing has appeared in National Geographic, USA Today, Everyday Health, Relevant Magazine, Christianity Today, Huffington Post, Red Letter Christian and Sojourners. Her writing for Christianity Today’s “This is Our City” project won first prize from the Evangelical Press Association.
As a speaker, Sarah is a regular at retreats, churches, colleges and conferences. She has spoken at Donald Miller’s Storyline Conference and the Jubilee Conference, as well as more than 50 universities and colleges. In addition to speaking to large assemblies, Sarah gives talks on the topics of International Aid, Health Communications and Public Health, and teaches nonfiction writing workshops.
She is a spokesperson for Vanity Fair Lingerie’s Women Who Do campaign. She is also a spokesperson for Compassion International.
Sarah has practiced international medicine extensively, volunteering in Togo, the Dominican Republic and South Sudan. She also started a clinic in Kenya for children who lost their parents to AIDS.
She currently lives in San Francisco.
