by Eric Bersh | May 29, 2025
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...
by Danny Sands, MD | May 6, 2024
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....
by Brenda Merriweather | Apr 26, 2024
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...
by Eric Bersh | Mar 28, 2024
I have a confession to make: I’m not always an effective advocate for my own care. It’s probably helpful for me to put this into context. I have been working in and around healthcare organizations for more than 25 years. I’m a researcher by trade, and worked with...
by Eric Bersh | Sep 25, 2023
Emergency medicine has always been a collaborative practice, where teamwork and communication are paramount as first responders, nurses and physicians work together knowing that every second counts. While much has been written about collaboration during the clinical...
by Eric Bersh | Jul 12, 2023
Editor’s note: Ibrahim Rashid contracted Long COVID more than two years ago. The experience is propelling his patient advocacy and entrepreneurship, as co-founder of the digital health company Strong Haulers. In this excerpt from his new book, Strong Hauler: Learning...
by Eric Bersh | May 17, 2023
At some point in our lives, we’ll be handed a little sheet of paper from our physician that has scribbled on it the medication we need, how much of it, and how often we should take it. These little slips of paper are power. They tell us that in order to get better, we...
by Eric Bersh | May 9, 2023
After 28 years of nursing I could potentially consider myself an expert in the field. But this perception couldn’t be further from the truth. I still come home from a shift and often wonder and hope that I brought comfort to at least one patient. Did I do enough?...
by Eric Bersh | Apr 20, 2023
When I describe the concept of participatory medicine, people who work in the healthcare industry often confuse it with other change initiatives, like social determinants of health or better access to care. It’s a different story when I describe participatory...
by Eric Bersh | Apr 6, 2023
I recently posted an article entitled, “In Cancer, Patient-Empowering AI Begins to Change Care, Relationships,” that contained this declaration, “Good medicine needs to become participatory medicine, not least because involving the patient as a partner consistently...
by Eric Bersh | Feb 14, 2023
Throughout my time as a psychotherapist specializing in end of life diseases, primarily cancer, I have spent many hours talking with both patients and medical teams about the importance of authentic communication and end of life planning. I see this kind of planning...
by Eric Bersh | Feb 1, 2023
Flash back to my article for the Society for Participatory Medicine last year: Let’s Save the Date and Make Patient Engagement Official in 2022. I’m here to deliver some great news: we tied the knot! By the power vested in clinical research, the FDA now pronounces us...
by Eric Bersh | Jan 11, 2023
I recently saw The Color of Care, a documentary highlighting the disparate and inequitable care received by Black and Brown individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the movie, Executive Producer Oprah Winfrey opined that one of the primary issues with...
by Eric Bersh | Sep 27, 2022
“Lack of effort and persistence” Those words cut like a knife, leaving a deeper wound than any facet of illness my daughter has faced. A provider used those words to describe my 19-year-old daughter Sara, who has lived her entire life with chronic complex medical...
by Eric Bersh | Sep 19, 2022
Active surveillance (AS) for low-risk to intermediate-risk prostate cancer has been “an overnight success” that took 30 years to move from academia to mainstream practices. Since 2014, AS — close monitoring of low-risk prostate cancer with PSA blood testing,...
by John Novack | Sep 12, 2022
Embracing shared decision making in medicine will improve patient outcomes, reduce costs, increase health equity, and even help alleviate clinician burnout, Danny Sands, MD, co-founder of the Society for Participatory Medicine, said in a recent podcast interview. Erin...
by Eric Bersh | Sep 7, 2022
The journey to diagnosis for patients, particularly those living with complex health conditions remains challenging for patients, their loved ones, and their physicians. As frontline experts on the diseases and conditions affecting their lives, patients and family...
by Eric Bersh | Apr 20, 2022
Editor’s note: When oncology and hospice nurse Theresa Brown was diagnosed with breast cancer, she couldn’t believe how disorganized and unempathic her care was. Ultimately she called it D.I.Y. care, as in Do-It-Yourself: figure out the treatment process, find the...
by Eric Bersh | Apr 13, 2022
For women of color facing breast cancer diagnoses, making decisions is a precarious balancing act, a process with significant implications across healthcare and society. Diagnosis tends to occur at a younger age (that is, before 40, when many screening programs become...
by John Novack | Mar 7, 2022
Editor’s note: Moyez Jiwa, MD, founder of The Journal of Health Design, and The Health Design Podcast, believes that we can improve outcomes for patients as soon as today by simply paying attention to the small details that needlessly undermine those outcomes. In...
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