Nancy Fong-Edwards

Why she does this

Before The Longevity Society, Nancy spent years in OB/GYN in Belle Glade, Florida. It is one of the most underserved communities in the state, and a place where patients too often go unheard.

One visit still stays with her. During a routine exam she felt masses by hand that should not have been there. She sent the patient to the emergency room that day. A couple of months later the patient was back for her scheduled checkup, now in pain. Nancy asked what the ER had found. They had told her they didn’t see anything.

Nancy wrote her a note and told her as plainly as she could: go back, and tell them what I said.

She went back. It was a large malignant tumor. They removed it.

Nancy has many stories like it from Belle Glade. That is the standard she brought to concierge care, and it is the reason she built The Longevity Society the way she did: every patient deserves the same attention, whoever they are and wherever they live.

Sunshine Women’s Medical Center, Montego Bay

During the pandemic, Nancy’s cousin in Jamaica had bleeding that would not stop. Nancy kept telling her to get to a hospital. There were no flights, no elective procedures, and every time she went in they sent her home. When the restrictions finally lifted and she was able to be properly examined, it was stage 4 cervical cancer. She died in the hospital not long after, in terrible pain.

Cervical cancer is one of the most preventable cancers there is. A routine Pap and HPV screening catches it years before it ever becomes dangerous, and a vaccine prevents most of it outright. She did not need a miracle. She needed someone to take her seriously the first time, and a screening that costs almost nothing.

That is what Nancy could not accept. So she opened Sunshine Women’s Medical Center on Orange Street in Montego Bay and funded it herself, staff included, out of her own pocket. No nonprofit, no grant. Just a place where a woman with a symptom gets taken seriously the first time, and where the screening that would have saved her cousin is routine.

It is also why The Longevity Society is built around prevention. Prevention is better than cure. Nancy’s message to every client is the same: take care of yourself before a chronic illness takes the choice away from you.

Roots in South Florida

Nancy lived in Loxahatchee for years and still keeps a home there, so Palm Beach County is not just a service area to her. The Longevity Society serves Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties from our base in Broward.