Beyond question, the “gimme my damn data” rock star of 2012 is ICD patient Hugo Campos. (See our past posts about him, including his TEDx Cambridge talk and other media coverage.)

I just learned about this well produced short version of his story and his call to action, for patients to have access to their device data. It’s a promo video from next September’s Medicine X conference at Stanford, for which he’s an “ePatient Advisor.”  His part runs from 0:21 to 3:13.

“A lot of times patients are not trusted to care for themselves. You manage your career, you’re capable of managing your finances – why is it any different when it comes to healthcare? … I don’t want to become a cardiologist, I don’t have any ambitions to understand every thing that there is to understand about the heart, and every possible type of cariomyopathy – but – I want to be an expert when it comes to me – my own condition.”

And that, ladies and gents, is an engaged patient.

Here’s the video’s page on the conference website.

e-Patient Dave

"e-Patient Dave" deBronkart is a co-founder of our Society and past board chair. He survived a near-fatal kidney cancer by being an e-patient long before he'd heard the word. Today he evangelizes participatory medicine, patient empowerment, and patient data access as a keynote speaker and at epatientdave.com.