Ellen Lenox Smith has emerged as a leading voice for patients in living with pain in her state of Rhode Island and across the country. Featured in local and national press accounts, Mrs. Smith brings a reasoned and compassionate perspective to the need for safe patient access to medicine and timely, accurate care. She has been featured in such places as the NY Times, NPR Radio, Washington Post, Pain Pathways and Arthritis Today Magazines and presented a workshop at the EDS conferences in 2013 and 2015.  This past year, she was asked to write about medical marijuana for Pain News Network.

Mrs. Smith suffers from two rare conditions. One is Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. This crippling disease allows her joints to become easily subluxed and occasionally dislocated, causing vice-like pain and confining her on and off to a wheelchair. She presently has endured twenty-two surgeries and countless visits to her doctors. In October, she will have her neck fused.

Her second condition is called sarcoidosis, which has allowed enlarged lymph nodes and granulomas in her lungs. Both these conditions are presently not curable. Mrs. Smith has enjoyed a long and distinguished career, predominantly in the field of education