by Eric Bersh | Apr 6, 2026
The Society for Participatory Medicine (SPM) will have a small but important presence at the upcoming World Orphan Drug Congress, June 9-11, at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.  Anyone who knows me knows I have a heart for the rare disease community that...
by Eric Bersh | Apr 1, 2026
Editor’s Note: Kevin recently spoke with Cait DesRoches, who was named Principal Investigator for the Society of Participatory Medicine’s signature project, CHAMP, the Collaborative Health Care Action Measurement Platform. This is Part 2 of that...
by Eric Bersh | Jan 19, 2026
The Everylife Foundation for Rare Diseases (ELF) held their annual Community Congress meeting on December 11, 2025 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.  The Community Congress acts as a coalition of collaborators with shared priorities, providing strategic...
by Eric Bersh | Dec 16, 2025
What if the most powerful medicine wasn’t a pill, but a team grounded in compassion? Healthcare today is complex. No single clinician can meet every need of a patient navigating chronic illness, acute crises, or preventive care. That’s why collaboration matters. When...
by Eric Bersh | Nov 7, 2025
Editor’s Note: Recent SPM articles have given a high-level overview of the responses to some questions that the Society for Participatory Medicine suggested for the Beryl Institute – IPSOS PX Pulse: Consumer Perspectives on Patient Experience in the US (PX...
by Eric Bersh | Sep 10, 2025
Editor’s Note: Kevin Freiert and Dan Halpren-Ruder, MD are part of a group working to launch an exciting new SPM inititative, described here. The Promise Participatory medicine promises to enhance quality while potentially decreasing costs. By...
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 | 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 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 | Apr 6, 2024
To implement successful change you must, unequivocally, understand the culture of the environment you are looking to change. Culture and change management are inextricably connected. Culture is a made up of a series of repeated, engrained, and expected behaviors and,...
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 e-Patient Dave | Nov 20, 2023
I’m working on lots of things about generative AI in healthcare, because among other things, “GenAI” is incredibly empowering and liberating for e-patients. For kicks I decided to ask GPT-4 what it thinks participatory medicine is. Here’s its...
by e-Patient Dave | Oct 2, 2023
Since our beginning in 2009 a big part of the vision for our Society has been to spread the word. Toward that end, this month I’m doing a talk at the Massachusetts Council on Aging annual conference, to launch a new topic I’ll be using in local community...
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 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...
SPM at the World Orphan Drug ConferenceApril 6, 2026
Introducing the CHAMP Principal Investigator: Cait DesRoches (Part 2)April 1, 2026
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