James Snyder is a clinical and translational neurologist focused on brain and spine cancer. His personal mission is to improve access to care and specialized resources for rare diseases. He has been the participation lead for the Patient Family Advisory Council in the Hermelin Brain Tumor Center at Henry Ford Hospital since its initiation in 2018. Through the hospital’s social advocacy campaigns, he has helped connect patients and advocates with the hospital’s research efforts. He hopes to serve his community by bridging the gap between quality, impactful research and patient stakeholder participation. Snyder is also a caregiver who lost his mother to endometrial cancer. Although he is a physician working in cancer and clinical trials, he found navigating health care and his mother’s care experience difficult. He believes his voice as a patient advocate is valuable as someone who has an understanding of how cancer care is designed to work, how it actually works, and in some cases does not work.