e-Patients Blog
The blog of the Society for Participatory Medicine. Want to be a contributor?
Dealing with Medical Uncertainty, Ambiguity, and Frustration
My primary care physician motivated me to share my story, which is perhaps best described as an unfinished journey. What started to be a typical runner’s problem morphed into dealing with limited personal mobility with neuropathic pain and loss of sensation. I was...
Collaboration is the Best Medicine: The Time for Participatory Medicine is Now
Editor's Note: Kevin Freiert and Dan Halpren-Ruder, MD are part of a group working to launch an exciting new SPM inititative, described here. The Promise Participatory medicine promises to enhance quality while potentially decreasing costs. By actively...
In Memory of Nancy Finn: e-Patient, Advocate, Author, SPM Supporter
We don’t regularly post obituaries on the e-Patients Blog. But sometimes we lose someone of great moment to the SPM and the e-patient community. Nancy Finn was one such person. Nancy Finn was a beacon of inspiration and advocacy. Recently, we faced the profound loss...
A cure for what killed Doc Tom! Can people afford it?
Our Society was founded by 11 friends and followers of "Doc Tom" Ferguson, who died in 2006 of multiple myeloma. (If you don't know his extraordinary vision, see our Doc Tom page, and perhaps our Founders page. I continue to cite him in my speeches, 19 years later -...
Learning Health Systems Empower Every American to Actually Make America Healthy Again Together, Part 2
Editor’s Note: This is the second part of Josh Rubin’s post. The first was published on May 23, 2025 Building Upon a Powerful Foundation of Patient Empowerment In part 1 of this post I paraphrased Dr. Casey Means (referencing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.), noting that...
Learning Health Systems Empower Every American to Actually Make America Healthy Again Together, Part 1
Editor’s Note: This post (in two parts) builds upon email correspondence the author sent to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and key members of his Make America Health Again (MAHA) team beginning in November 2024. It aims to illuminate alignment between three principles (and...
More important than Time and Money
Mortality is a fabric more important than money, politics, and belief systems. We all share the same responsibility of health; the only variable is the time in our life we acknowledge it. Rare/undiagnosed consumer behavior is the most intense example of participatory...
We Can Change the US Healthcare System: Your Health, Your Voice
For decades, policymakers, CEOs, politicians, doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, caregivers, and anyone who's been a patient inside or outside a hospital has known one simple fact -- the US healthcare system is broken. Every other first world country has long...
The Killing of Brian Thompson was Awful
The news cycle is moving on, but the killing of Brian Thompson was awful, no matter how one feels about the shortcomings of the American health care system. In a recent New York Times opinion piece, Andrew Witty, president of the UnitedHealth Group, wrote that no one...
Exciting 15th Anniversary Project and Opportunity for Member Engagement
Over the past several months, SPM’s board has engaged in a planning effort, as it approaches the fifteenth anniversary of its creation. Our goal is to assess the state of the Participatory Medicine movement and discern where SPM could have its greatest impact in...
Leveraging Personalized Technology to Motivate Behavior Change
I care for a diverse population of individuals in my primary care practice. It’s hard enough to motivate behavior change in people who have little motivation, but it’s even more challenging when it’s hard to connect with them because of cultural disparities....
Technology, Health Equity, and Participatory Medicine in the Care Management of Sickle Cell Patients
During my doctoral study in nursing practice a couple of years ago, I learned about a champion of nursing informatics, Dr. Nancy Staggers. Dr. Staggers assisted in developing the American Nursing Association’s Scopes and Standards of Practice. She also contributed to...
