by Eric Bersh | May 5, 2022 |
We cannot always choose what happens to us in life, but we can choose how we respond and handle it. Take for example, the time that I had a physical examination with my relatively new primary care physician. They did blood work and I received a report, along with a...
by Eric Bersh | Apr 27, 2022 |
Curled up on her hospital gurney but unable to sleep, the middle-aged Latinx female trauma patient sighed, “I am tired of being tired.” Before daybreak, “Rosa” (not her real name) had arrived at work to open her New York restaurant but was interrupted by an intruder...
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 Eric Bersh | Mar 16, 2022 |
My husband was on a tele-call as I walked past in the background quiet, as if a mouse. He got off his call and asked “So?” I exclaimed “It’s positive!” He could hardly believe it, I acted so calm. I had already intuitively had a sense—I was pregnant. We were ecstatic,...
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...
by Eric Bersh | Mar 1, 2022 |
In 2004, at age 17, I was diagnosed with an adult-onset muscle disease called limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 2B (LGMD2B). My diagnostic journey began 10 months prior, the result of a routine blood test after a car accident which yielded concerning biomarker...
by Geri Lynn Baumblatt | Feb 23, 2022 |
Informal, unpaid family caregivers and care partners are increasingly the backbone of participatory medicine. My father was a physician, but when he was seriously ill, it was really on my mom and me to advocate for him, understand the constellation of conditions,...
by John Novack | Feb 3, 2022 |
Editor’s note: Annie Brewster, MD, founder of Health Story Collaborative, and a friend to the Society for Participatory Medicine, has just published “The Healing Power of Storytelling: Using Personal Narrative to Navigate Illness, Trauma, and Loss.” In this excerpt...
by Eric Bersh | Jan 27, 2022 |
After a happy couple has been dating and in a stable relationship for a while, they often decide to take a traditional, next, more permanent step to the institution of marriage. They make an announcement to kick it all off: “We’re engaged!” When we hear about an...
Urgent – comment TODAY: stop this CMS rule change that suppresses hospital safety dataJune 17, 2022
Collaborative Notes, Engaged Partners, Fewer ErrorsJune 13, 2022
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