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 | 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 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 | Sep 26, 2023
I had an idea last week and just tried it. ChatGPT is awesome at summarizing things, but could it handle medical notes? They’re complicated. It worked! I took the visit notes from my last doctor appointment (the whole big, long, detailed thing) and asked...
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 | 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...
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 | 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 | Jan 4, 2023
A few years ago I learned that non-profit organizations MUST have a Scientific or Medical Advisory Board in order to be listed on NIH’s website as an informational resource for patients. Likewise, many foundation grants require a non-profit to have a similar...
by e-Patient Dave | Nov 30, 2022
This post is about a paper I co-authored in JMIR in August with Bertalan Meskó MD PhD, Patient Design: The Importance of Including Patients in Designing Health Care. It’s challenging and perhaps a bit confrontational to conventional healthcare, because it...
by Eric Bersh | Nov 15, 2022
Editor’s note: In his new book, The Long Haul – Solving the Puzzle of the Pandemic’s Long Haulers and How They Are Changing Healthcare Forever, journalist and patient Ryan Prior depicts the courage of patients with Long COVID who were the first to name,...
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 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 | Aug 23, 2022
Being born with cystic fibrosis, a progressive, genetic lung disease, I have had countless health encounters throughout my life. Through these experiences I have learned the power that lies in self advocating for my health in the clinic setting with my doctors and...
by Eric Bersh | Jul 12, 2022
When I heard the words, “You have Lupus,” I didn’t know the magnitude of how much my life was going to be tested. It started in 1980 when rashes and unexplained fevers plagued my life. Seeing doctors about my symptoms led to solutions that were only temporary. Fifteen...
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...
In Memory of Nancy Finn: e-Patient, Advocate, Author, SPM SupporterJuly 16, 2025
A cure for what killed Doc Tom! Can people afford it?June 27, 2025
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