Dr. Shanéa Thomas on Death, Legacy, and What We Leave Behind

A former morgue worker turned organizational change expert on why LGBTQ+ health professionals need to think about legacy now—before the good people are gone.

Author

Baxstar Jonmarie Ferguson
November 14, 2025

Dr. Shanéa Thomas knows what it looks like when someone sees their loved one for the last time. For years, Thomas worked at the DC morgue through a program called RECOVER, sitting with families as they identified bodies by photograph. Each time, Thomas would wait for the person to say they were ready, then turn the photo over.

"You just never know what reactions you're gonna get," Thomas recalls. "Everybody reacts to grief differently," Thomas says. "That was a very poignant job for me to constantly think about, how do I think about death?"

Now, as experienced LGBTQ+ professionals leave the field in unprecedented numbers and organizations close their doors, Thomas applies those lessons to a different kind of ending. The question isn't just how people die—it's what happens to their knowledge when they go.

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