by e-Patient Dave | Dec 31, 2012
Some things are what they call “evergreen” – persistent value, never out of date. Two come together for this year-end post. __________ A lot’s changed since our society was formed in 2009, but year after year a core skill for participatory...
by e-Patient Dave | Nov 30, 2011
We’ve often cited Gary Schwitzer’s Health News Review (@HealthNewsRevu on Twitter)Â as an invaluable e-patient resource. With a structured ten point evaluation process, the site’s many trained reviewers evaluate the reporting of health news. We...
by e-Patient Dave | Jan 21, 2011
Update 1/22: this was originally in our “Found on the Net” sidebar, but it’s attracted enough comments that it belongs in the mainstream. I was researching the coverage of statins on Health News Review, the great e-patient resource we’ve often...
by e-Patient Dave | Dec 4, 2009
There’s a new resource for a vital e-patient skill: reading health news responsibly. It helps us be smarter before we bring new findings to the attention of other patients and our providers – not to mention smarter for our own benefit. When “Doc...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 20, 2017
Please cite this post as “by Dave deBronkart, Marilyn Mann and Peter Elias MD” or, on Twitter, “@ePatientDave, @MarilynMann & @PHEski.” Our blog software only allows listing one author but they provided 2/3 of the content. The medical news...
by e-Patient Dave | May 30, 2013
See my post about this on Forbes. This is as close as a call to arms as we ever get around here, given how collaborative we are. But this is a case of bad science and/or bad reporting, with clear harm to the participatory medicine movement. Whatever the reason, it...
by e-Patient Dave | Oct 9, 2012
We’ve long written here about Health News Review, the terrifically empowering and educational news-dissection service started by Gary Schwitzer and now involving numerous writers. Health News Review was modeled after a similar service in Australia started by Ray...
by e-Patient Dave | Oct 5, 2011
We’ve often said here that when an e-patient wants to be responsible for treatment decisions, it’s essential to know how to evaluate the research about each option. A common mistake is to trust, blindly, news reports about a treatment, or even to trust,...
by e-Patient Dave | Aug 31, 2011
Guest post by SPM member Gangadhar Sulkunte. We posted his family’s e-patient story two years ago. The FDA’s Risk Communication Advisory Committee has published a PDF book called  “Communicating Risks and Benefits: An Evidence-Based User’s...
by e-Patient Dave | Aug 23, 2011
Stop what you’re doing, as soon as possible, and spend 20 minutes watching this. It’s the most powerful short talk I’ve ever seen about health care. Our e-patient white paper is titled “e-Patients: How they can help heal healthcare.” In...
by e-Patient Dave | Aug 7, 2011
An SPM member [name redacted – wishes to remain anonymous :–)] emailed this, with the playful subject line “A New e-Patient”: (Click the image to go to the high-res on the comic’s site; © Copyright 2011 King Features Syndicate, all rights...
by Jessie Gruman | Aug 5, 2011
Check out Gary Schwitzer of Health News Review on actions you can and should take. Part of a short five part video series. http://www.healthnewsreview.org/blog/2011/07/part-5-of-video-series-what-you-can-do-if-you-see-slipshod-health-care-news.html...
by e-Patient Dave | Jun 7, 2011
This guest post by SPM member Peter Schmidt is long overdue. I asked him to write it months ago after discussion on our post Tips for Understanding Studies (Health News Review). Apologies for the delay. If you’d like to submit a guest post, see our guidelines. I...
by e-Patient Dave | Jan 28, 2011
Update 1/29: in a comment, Gilles Frydman pointed out that Newsweek’s Sharon Begley wrote this article almost two months before the New Yorker piece appeared – and the editors held the article, apparently due to pressure from a pharma advertiser whose...
by e-Patient Dave | Jan 13, 2011
A recurring theme on this blog is the need for empowered, engaged patients to understand what they read about science. It’s true when researching treatments for one’s condition, it’s true when considering government policy proposals, it’s true...
by e-Patient Dave | Dec 12, 2010
All, if you have a story where you were affected by being involved (or not) in a medical decision, please see my request at “Help Me Represent You” below. Same if you have points you want me to bring to this seminar’s attention. I feel extremely fortunate...
by e-Patient Dave | Sep 20, 2010
You can’t be well empowered if you hear advice wrong. That’s why, in a participatory relationship, an essential skill is accurate handoff of information. The Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making, catchily pronounced “fimdim,” has...
by e-Patient Dave | Jul 8, 2010
Correction: the email address for volunteering has been updated to volunteer@participatorymedicine.org We’ve written many times about Gary Schwitzer and the excellent work he does at Health News Review. Last December I said reading health news carefully is a...
by e-Patient Dave | Jun 11, 2010
I’ve only been studying healthcare for two years – far less than most people on this blog – and I hesitate to be overly assertive. But I have, finally, reached the point where I feel confident in citing cases where people are simply being...
by e-Patient Dave | Mar 4, 2010
Empowered patients know they’re responsible for their choice of care providers. We usually follow our clinicians’ advice, but we take responsibility for it. That’s hard when a quality agency obscures its findings. So IÂ object to a reality reported...
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