Joan Anderson

Joan Anderson began experiencing symptoms of mitral valve prolapse syndrome before the medical community seemed to know or acknowledge the condition existed. As a journalist and medical writer who was experienced in researching health issues and cutting through barriers to find answers, Joan took on her personal assignment about MVPS with the same vigor.

Joan began her forty-year career as a journalist, when, as a mother, she exposed the dangers of chemicals in children’s sleepwear. That led to a position as a medical/consumer reporter with KERA, the PBS affiliate in Dallas, Texas, and the eventual banning of the chemicals.

Her award-winning article, “Deep Sleep,” published in D (Dallas) Magazine, revealed the cause of an unprecedented cluster of anesthesia deaths and was the impetus for a segment on the ABC show 20/20 for which she served as a consultant.

Also, in D Magazine, her in-depth report “The Baby Factory” chronicled the dangerous procedures used during the birth of her second child and helped usher in a more natural approach to hospital deliveries in her home city of Fort Worth.

She won The American Cancer Society of Texas Journalist Award for her article “A Time to Die,” which explained a more sensitive and honest approach to dying offered by a new and controversial program at the time—hospice.

Her video, Shelter From the Storm of Family Violence, which she produced in the late 1980s, helped educate the public on that hidden problem. It received an award from the Dallas Chapter of Women in Communication.

She has also served as a healthcare administrator with a major Texas healthcare system and coauthored two books with a nationally recognized physician.

She now adds this book, "My Action Plan: Stopping the Symptoms of Mitral Valve Prolapse Syndrome/Dysautonomia," to her list of investigative reports. The text chronicles what she’s learned in the effort to take back her life from the grips of MVPS. Joan knew she had to have an action plan to do that. This is hers.