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A Reminder of How To Care Through Self-Reflection

A Reminder of How To Care Through Self-Reflection

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?...
Why Dying is Not Giving Up

Why Dying is Not Giving Up

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...
Linnea Olson: An Appreciation of a Giant

Linnea Olson: An Appreciation of a Giant

Pioneers of medical progress are lauded in published articles and by their professional peers. But it is often the patient advocates, particularly those who demanded better treatment, spearheaded clinical trial advances, and bravely took on institutions and standards...
Everyone-Included Research

Everyone-Included Research

Person-included research, co-production, tragedy, grief, health equity, and relationships in life and research. Chat with Amy Price of Stanford and BMJ Proem Research follows life. Life comes before research. My diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis preceded my need for...

The Medical Humanity of Oliver Sacks: In His Own Words

We science-medicine-poetry junkies, along with a sizeable portion of the world’s population, are mourning the death of Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and author who died last Sunday from metastasized melanoma. And as enthusiasts of Dr. Sacks’ catechisms on the soul of...

e-Patient Lisa Adams

In this guest blog post, member Carly Medosch describes Lisa Adams whom she knows from social media. Lisa Adams was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and documented her journey in social media. In another post below we describe the media firestorm that was caused...
Caregivers, please share your stories

Caregivers, please share your stories

The Pew Research Center will release a new report about caregivers in June. As we prepare, I’m looking for stories to share with reporters so they can better understand the context for our data. If you have experience caring for a family member, a friend, or a...
Engage with Grace

Engage with Grace

A guest post from the Engage with Grace team… One of our favorite things we ever heard Steve Jobs say is… ‘If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.’ We love it for three reasons: It reminds all of us that living...

Caregivers Online

A new Pew Internet/California HealthCare Foundation report is out today: Family Caregivers Online. I thought I’d give some background on why we did the study and a few key take-aways. Caregivers are alpha geeks of health care 30% of U.S. adults are currently...

How Doctors Die

If you’re interested in a responsible approach to one’s own death, you’ll want to read How Doctors Die, on the Zocalo Public Square blog. It’s not a frequent topic of discussion, but doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s...

In memoriam: Monique Doyle Spencer

Cross-posted from my own site. Last night a dear and inspiring friend breathed her last. Monique Doyle Spencer, metastatic breast cancer patient, died at home as she wished. All knew the end was near. A couple of weeks ago she happily attended her daughter’s...

This year it’s … Occupy With Grace

As in 2009 and 2010, this year too we donate our top post at Thanksgiving to the Engage With Grace movement, encouraging people to participate in this very important discussion, at the time of year when we’re most likely to be together with families. Because it...

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