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 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 Eric Bersh | May 23, 2025
Editor’s Note: This post (in two parts) builds upon email correspondence the author sent to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and key members of his Make America Health Again (MAHA) team beginning in November 2024. It aims to illuminate alignment between three principles (and...
by Eric Bersh | Feb 5, 2025
Mortality is a fabric more important than money, politics, and belief systems. We all share the same responsibility of health; the only variable is the time in our life we acknowledge it. Rare/undiagnosed consumer behavior is the most intense example of participatory...
by Mary Hennings | Dec 30, 2024
The news cycle is moving on, but the killing of Brian Thompson was awful, no matter how one feels about the shortcomings of the American health care system. In a recent New York Times opinion piece, Andrew Witty, president of the UnitedHealth Group, wrote that no one...
by Mary Hennings | Aug 7, 2024
Over the past several months, SPM’s board has engaged in a planning effort, as it approaches the fifteenth anniversary of its creation. Our goal is to assess the state of the Participatory Medicine movement and discern where SPM could have its greatest impact in...
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 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 | Jan 17, 2024
Our goal for the Society for Participatory Medicine in 2023 was to expand awareness of participatory medicine ([PM)] and SPM post-Covid and build new insights into the value of PM. We developed two curriculum modules, one on participatory medicine and the other on...
by Eric Bersh | Aug 28, 2023
From shared-decision making, patient-centered care and value-based care to common technology innovations, healthcare players often describe how we aspire healthcare to be in concepts, buzzwords, branding and what has become common lexicon mentioned in conversations...
by Eric Bersh | Aug 17, 2023
I was born with a congenital heart defect called bicuspid aortic stenosis with regurgitation. When I was 12 years old I was told I needed immediate open-heart surgery. As the anxiety, depression and sheer terror set in, my family tried to distract me by taking me on...
by Eric Bersh | Aug 8, 2023
Editor’s note: In her new book, Communicating Through a Pandemic: A Chronicle of Experiences, Lessons Learned, and a Vision for the Future, Amelia Burke-Garcia, PhD, MA explores the many and varied roles that communication has played over the course of this pandemic,...
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 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 Brenda Merriweather | Jun 12, 2023
Editor’s note: The following column by Society for Participatory Medicine board member Brenda Merriweather originally appeared in this space in December 2021. We are excerpting from that column in recognition of “Advancing Health Equity Through Participatory...
by Eric Bersh | Jun 6, 2023
My brother Jacob was born with a chronic neurological condition that caused him permanent physical and mental disabilities. As the only other child in a single parent family, I was often with Jacob during his frequent hospital stays and doctor visits. It is through...
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 | May 2, 2023
Twenty-five years ago, I learned I had a large liposarcoma in my left quadricep. I have written elsewhere about my surprise when my surgeon informed me that he and the team had changed the treatment plan. What team? Who are these people? Why wasn’t I at the team...
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...
In Memory of Nancy Finn: e-Patient, Advocate, Author, SPM SupporterJuly 16, 2025
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