by Ileana Balcu | Nov 23, 2019
As I was volunteering for SPM, it took years to learn its history and understand where we are, how the Society got created, and why it is what it is. This is not a historical well-documented history of SPM, it’s my imperfect interpretation of its history. Doc Tom...
by Ileana Balcu | Nov 20, 2019
Jane Sarasohn-Kahn makes a compelling argument at how important it is to think about all aspects of health, not just the healthcare system in her most recent blog post: Social Determinants of Health – My Early Childhood Education and Recent Learnings, Shared at the...
by Ileana Balcu | Nov 15, 2019
My painting teacher, Wes Sherman, calls himself a conservator. He shares paintings, pictures, and tidbits of art history with special attention to artists that inspire him. I learned so much from a year of tidbits shared on Instagram. As I was driving back from the...
by Ileana Balcu | Jun 19, 2017
Lawrence “Larry” Weed (born December 1923, died June 3, 2017) was an American physician, researcher, educator, entrepreneur, and author, who is best known for creating the problem-oriented medical record as well as one of the first electronic health records....
by Ileana Balcu | Jun 8, 2017
Eric Topol published a Commentary on Medscape describing a study published in JAMA in which cancer patients that tracked 12 symptoms and shared the tracking results with their health teams had a five months increase in survival equivalent with some of the most...
by Ileana Balcu | May 16, 2017
This is a guest blog post by Allie Davanzo. Allie was my student in the New Media and Health Communication class I taught at TCNJ. More about the class is shared in this post. Allie Davanzo is a sophomore Public Health major at The College of New Jersey who hopes to...
by Ileana Balcu | Feb 11, 2017
This is a post by SPM Board Member John Hoben – Business Development Director at Bio-Optronics. Hoben’s passion is reconfiguring medical industrial complex assets and transactions from sickness response to true preventive delivery. This entails focusing on...
by Ileana Balcu | Jan 10, 2017
Member Angela Lundberg’s blog article was just published for RheumatoidArthritis.net. It discusses the high out-of-pocket costs of health insurance for people who already have insurance. Health Insurance & RA: Dangerously Uncovered Besides the benefits she...
by Ileana Balcu | Nov 23, 2016
Coming from Romania 15 years ago, Thanksgiving was not a big thing for me. I didn’t quite grasp the holiday. My husband cooked and celebrated, and I helped and observed it in a detached way. 11 years ago, it was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I was 22 weeks...
by Ileana Balcu | Sep 29, 2016
Beautiful and comprehensive blog post from Regina Holliday about different types of patient advocates, the evolution of the patient as speaker, consumer, policy-igniter and her own work....
by Ileana Balcu | Aug 1, 2016
This is a guest blog post by Cleo Kordomenos. Cleo was my student in the New Media and Health Communication class I taught at TCNJ. More about the class is shared in this post. Cleo Kordomenos is a Senior Communication Studies student at The College of New Jersey...
by Ileana Balcu | Jul 30, 2016
In the Spring of 2016 I had the opportunity to teach the course New Media and Health Communication for an undergraduate class at The College of New Jersey. The class, designed by Dr. Yifeng Hu, already included an introduction to participatory medicine and patient...
by Ileana Balcu | Dec 2, 2015
Carol Gunn, an SPM physician member, was featured in a Forbes article about her sister’s misdiagnosis, and her mission after her sister’s death. Carol’s tips for patients to avoid being victims of diagnostic mistakes: Tip #1: Get a second opinion...
by Ileana Balcu | Nov 10, 2015
The series of blog posts at the online community website Crohnology continues for patients with IBD. Duncan Cross has a post that is interesting for anyone with an autoimmune or other disabling chronic condition: Am I disabled? It discusses the Americans with...
by Ileana Balcu | Sep 15, 2015
This is a guest post by our member Mary Beth Schoening. Mary Beth is co-founder of Behavioral Health Innovators, Inc. an organization combining the power of human compassion with technology, advanced research and best practices from industry to encourage healthy...
by Ileana Balcu | Sep 8, 2015
To all in the Washington/Baltimore/northern Virginia area (and elsewhere if you care to travel!): The patient committee of the Society for Improved Diagnosis in Medicine would like to invite you to our second annual Patient Summit on Diagnosis. The summit is part of...
by Ileana Balcu | Aug 20, 2015
The site Crohnology, well known patient community for patients with IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease), recently started focusing their blog on explaining IBD- focused research to patients. Their most recent blog post describes a study that studied what patients with...
by Ileana Balcu | Jun 17, 2015
Matthew S. Katz, MD, is the Medical Director of Radiation Oncology at Lowell General Hospital and a lifetime member of S4PM. He is former Chair of Communications Committee for the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and external advisor for Mayo Clinic’s...
by Ileana Balcu | Jun 16, 2015
Weill Cornell produced a series of mini-documentary style videos showcasing mentoring at their institution. This final video specifically focuses on how patients mentor their students....
by Ileana Balcu | Jun 15, 2015
That’s the title of a new post on the Mighty blog written by Catherine Richardson, a 23-year-old chronic illness patient from Vancouver, Canada, who also blogs at findingmymiracle.com. It’s about something simple, but helpful, that her doctor told her,...
In Memory of Nancy Finn: e-Patient, Advocate, Author, SPM SupporterJuly 16, 2025
A cure for what killed Doc Tom! Can people afford it?June 27, 2025
Learning Health Systems Empower Every American to Actually Make America Healthy Again Together, Part 2May 29, 2025
More important than Time and MoneyFebruary 5, 2025
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