Stacy Patterson, MD
Chief Medical Officer
QBFox Healthcomm
The Original Medical Strategist
Traditionally, doctors diagnose and care for patients with illness and injury. But care for brands? For their strategies? And the positionings, insights, and creative that make it all hum? Well, it takes a special kind of MD to do that. It takes Stacy Patterson, MD.
After Stacy graduated from Duke University Medical School and was inducted into the esteemed Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society, she began a career in pharmaceuticals, working on both the agency and the client side of the business. At Integrated Communications (so named because the agency “integrated” medical insight into creative and marketing), Stacy led the first team of medical directors within an agency. With an intimate knowledge of the audience and a deep understanding of disease state and data, Stacy and her team consistently brought nuanced insights and singular medical strategies to clients. The medical strategist was born. Eventually other agencies began to form their own medical departments—often hiring from Stacy’s 20 hand-taught medical strategists.
As the agency morphed into ICC Lowe, she helped win pitch after pitch, growing the agency into a powerhouse as the first to garner Agency of the Year honors a record three times in one year from three different organizations.
Now, as Chief Medical Officer at QBFox Healthcomm, Stacy oversees the strategy of every brand the agency works on. She’s responsible for not only mastering the ins and outs of a brand’s data, but also its competition. And, most importantly, for finding that riveting medical hook—the one eye-opener that makes the audience quickly say: “Of course, now this all makes perfect sense.” She is a big driver in organizational growth and new business. And once she is on a piece of business, clients are often heard saying: “We want her involved in everything.”
