Sharon Meieran

Background

About Sharon Meieran

I am a duck-billed platypus of sorts. As a mom, a doctor, a lawyer and a County Commissioner, I do not fall into a specific niche. But that is what gives me perspective, compassion, a varied set of skills, and vision. As an emergency physician working on the front line, I see the people who fall through the cracks in society’s “safety net”. I work not only for those individuals who end up in the emergency department, but, as an advocate, I address the systems issues that brought them there. As Medical Director for the Oregon Foundation for Reproductive Health, I worked not only for individual women who desperately needed access to reproductive health services, but I worked to change the system so that someday they and their families would not need anyone’s assistance to have access to reproductive health care and justice. As a lawyer, I worked to ensure that individual children were safe, and that there were systems in place to keep them that way. And as a mom, I walk the line every day to ensure that my children feel loved, secure and safe, and I work to ensure that all children can have this same foundation. From my unique vantage point, I see interconnections among all aspects of health care, human services and public safety. And now, as a Multnomah County Commissioner, I use my motley array of skills and experience in the policy arena to work effectively and collaboratively toward implementation of common-sense, integrated, foundational, and systems-based solutions to the biggest issues facing our community - homelessness, mental health and substance use disorder, public safety, and public health.