Office of Primary Care and Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) Program

Melissa Houser, M.D.’12, is a neurodivergent family physician whose practice, All Brains Belong VT, specializes in providing primary care and resources to neurodivergent patients.

(JANUARY 15, 2025) Melissa Houser, M.D.’12, a neurodivergent family physician specializing in providing primary care to neurodivergent children and entire families, spoke with Seven Days about their medical practice, All Brains Belong VT.

At the age of 37, Houser was diagnosed for the first time with autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This transformative experience inspired them to create a new model of health care delivery. In December 2021, using their decade of experience treating patients of all ages and their personal experience as a neurodivergent individual, Houser officially opened All Brains Belong VT (ABB), a small, nonprofit primary care medical practice and community center in Montpelier offering patient-centered health care and inclusively-designed community events. ABB specializes in neurodivergent patients, or the one in five people who think, learn, communicate, and experience the world differently. 

All Brains Belong also hosts community programs for neurodivergent children and teens, and it produces weekly webinars and educational materials for parents, caregivers, employers, and health care practitioners to better serve the neurodivergent population and those with traumatic brain injuries. 

“People don’t just join a medical practice. They are joining a community,” said Houser. The Long Island native moved to Vermont in 2008 to attend the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine. Though they described their medical education as “excellent,” it included almost nothing about neurodiversity beyond a one-hour lecture on autism, they said. The lesson focused entirely on the red flags for recognizing autism, such as an inability to display emotions, read social cues, make eye contact, or communicate well verbally.

Because such characteristics apply to only a small percentage of people with autism, Houser said, they often missed signs of autism and other neurodivergence in their patients—and themself.

Houser had never suspected they were autistic. They later learned that 80 percent of women with autism are diagnosed in adulthood. Many are considered “high functioning,” with neurodivergence that flew under the radar of medical providers for years. “I was trained in the stereotypes,” Houser said, “and I did not fit those stereotypes.”

When discussing such conditions with patients, Houser uses whatever terms the patient prefers. However, they eschew the expressions “on the spectrum,” which they consider euphemistic, and “autism spectrum disorder,” because they believe autism is a brain difference to be accommodated, not a dysfunction that needs fixing.

“The most important thing we do is connect patients with other patients,” Houser said. “When they hear their own stories reflected back to them, there’s something so transformative about that.”

Now capped at 350 patients, All Brains Belong is too small to serve all the people who seek its services. The practice filled up within six weeks of opening, then added a nurse practitioner, filled up again, and finally closed its waiting list. Houser expects to hire another practitioner soon and accommodate another 100 patients by year’s end. Nevertheless, they are averse to growing too quickly because it would mean their current patients might have to wait months for an appointment.

For this reason, All Brains Belong provides free educational opportunities and training materials to other medical providers. The goal is to help local clinicians adopt a new model of community-driven health care, one that’s designed and shaped largely by patients themselves.