Tamiko Foster

About

A little bit about me…“When my 3rd grade teacher asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said I wanted to help people.”

At the age of 8, Dr. Foster, a native of Chicago, Illinois and first-generation college student, made the commitment to help others. Over the years she has accomplished this desire by passionately providing medical care and advocacy for families as a board-certified pediatrician, in addition to her roles as Chief Medical Officer and Corporate Medical Director of health insurance plans. She attended college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and received her medical degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Foster completed her pediatric residency at the University of Minnesota with an additional leadership year as Chief Resident. She was selected as a Commonwealth Fund Mongan Fellow in Minority Health Policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health/Harvard Medical School, where she received her Master's in Public Health-Health Policy, followed by an appointment by the Minnesota Department of Health as a charter member of the Health Equity and Leadership Council. Her work has primarily focused on caring for medical, social, and economic-disadvantaged populations with a holistic and integrative approach to wellness and health equity, which fostered a transition from the clinic room to board room to be a voice at the table for communities that have historically been left out. She is an active health advocate, mentor, and speaker in the community, and founder of the health and wellness company 2 E.D.I.F.Y. LLC, which is dedicated to fairness and best outcomes in healthcare and bringing healing to individuals and communities through education, edification, and empowerment. As a holistic provider, Dr. Foster also received additional training in integrative medicine, health coaching, functional medicine, and herbal medicine which motivated the launching of VIP Wellness Tea®. She is the author of the book “VIP Very Important Patient: The African American Woman’s Guide to Health Care, Healing, & Wellness”. Dr. Foster currently serves as a Corporate Medical Director at a multinational health insurance company where she helps to oversee appropriateness and efficiency of the use of health care services, techniques, and policies of medical treatments and services, in addition to leading efforts in health equity policy, training, and advocacy.