by e-Patient Dave | Jun 27, 2025
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,...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 29, 2024
Guest post by long-time SPM member Tracy Zervakis. Participatory medicine involves professionals and patients working together to get healthcare done. When a treatment plan is agreed and chosen, the best outcome obviously requires carrying out the plan – but...
by e-Patient Dave | Nov 20, 2023
I’m working on lots of things about generative AI in healthcare, because among other things, “GenAI” is incredibly empowering and liberating for e-patients. For kicks I decided to ask GPT-4 what it thinks participatory medicine is. Here’s its...
by e-Patient Dave | Oct 15, 2023
Be cautious, be wise: AI tools like ChatGPT sometimes makes things up! Would you want a doctor who does that?? You can use AI to gather information and probe deeply for more details. But check your facts before you act. See tips at end of post. The world is still...
by e-Patient Dave | Oct 2, 2023
Since our beginning in 2009 a big part of the vision for our Society has been to spread the word. Toward that end, this month I’m doing a talk at the Massachusetts Council on Aging annual conference, to launch a new topic I’ll be using in local community...
by e-Patient Dave | Sep 26, 2023
I had an idea last week and just tried it. ChatGPT is awesome at summarizing things, but could it handle medical notes? They’re complicated. It worked! I took the visit notes from my last doctor appointment (the whole big, long, detailed thing) and asked...
by e-Patient Dave | Aug 4, 2023
The BMJ has published an obituary of lifetime SPM member “Mighty Casey” Quinlan. We (co-authors Jan Oldenburg and I) are thrilled that the editors, particularly obituaries editor Birte Twistleman, gave full voice to everything Casey. May her memory be a...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 28, 2023
The board of our Society for Participatory Medicine has voted unanimously to give the society’s “Doc Tom” award to life member Casey Quinlan, who is in hospice in Richmond VA, as we blogged this month. On Saturday former board member Jan Oldenburg...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 24, 2023
On Twitter this morning SPM member Stacy Hurt announced that the big pharma conference DIA Global in Boston this June is #PatientsIncluded. Several levels of support are available, including one full scholarship including travel expenses, plus ten free patient...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 16, 2023
Update 3/19: We’ve opened a CaringBridge page for Casey, where her support team will post updates. You can subscribe to get notifications and to leave words of support, memories, etc. Anyone can view; posting requires free registration. This news hit us worse...
by e-Patient Dave | Nov 30, 2022
This post is about a paper I co-authored in JMIR in August with Bertalan Meskó MD PhD, Patient Design: The Importance of Including Patients in Designing Health Care. It’s challenging and perhaps a bit confrontational to conventional healthcare, because it...
by e-Patient Dave | Oct 10, 2022
Join us in Boston, Thursday afternoon, October 20. Oct 20 update: Here is the updated Zoom link. The Society for Participatory Medicine believes that the culture of healthcare is not benefiting everyone equally and needs to change. And healthcare won’t get better...
by e-Patient Dave | Jun 17, 2022
I know this is short notice. Quickly submit a letter TODAY JUNE 17 demanding that CMS not give in to industry pressure on this vital patient empowerment issue. Pick a template letter provided by Leapfrog Group and use it as is, or change as many words as you like:...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 8, 2021
Time for change! The theme of our 2019 conference was #Time4Change. This post kicks off a major 2021 campaign for our Society: the Participatory Medicine Manifesto. At that event we took action: in a design-thinking exercise, attendees crowdsourced the ideas that have...
by e-Patient Dave | Dec 20, 2020
Hi Fellow SPM Members, As a follow up to the note from Danny Sands on Monday, I would like to provide you with an update on some of the exciting strategy work a group of board members and others undertook this summer and fall. Much has changed in the world at large...
by e-Patient Dave | Dec 10, 2020
As regular readers know, our Society for Participatory Medicine has always been a strong advocate for the OpenNotes movement as a key enabler of patient power. As co-founder Dr. Danny Sands often says in his speeches, “How can patients participate if they...
by e-Patient Dave | Jun 6, 2020
Guest post by SPM member Pam Ressler RN, MS of Stress Resources LLC. See bio at end. I have just finished co-teaching a month-long elective on the topic of pain to a group of rising 4th year medical students. In collaboratively planning the curriculum with my...
by e-Patient Dave | May 12, 2020
This morning the New England Journal of Medicine released the latest publication about OpenNotes. The news: an innovative pre-visit form created for the “OurNotes” study has been released before the study is completed, for other providers to use to improve...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 17, 2020
“The cure for anxiety is knowledge and preparation.” That line is from the hip and edgy (and smart) Stanford doc @ZDoggMD in the amazing live conversation on YouTube he had with his 12 year old daughter last Friday. Here are some resources. Society for...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 9, 2020
The long-awaited rules on data access have been published this morning from two key parts of the US Department of Health & Human Services. I’ll expand this post with more links as we digest what’s been offered and will unfold in the coming week. The...
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