e-Patients Blog
The blog of the Society for Participatory Medicine. Want to be a contributor?
Video Series: Doctor to Doctor – The Future of Tele-Health
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The Power of Storytelling
In the fall of 2020, in the depths of the pandemic, I attended the Philadelphia Inquirer Telling Your Health Story Conference from the safety of my home. I had volunteered to do the Story Slam at the end of the conference and planned on presenting a piece about caring...
Reflecting on the Importance of Ethics in Clinical Care and Research
Working as a health care researcher can be both rewarding and challenging, as daily we need to remember our commitment to our patients’ well-being and ethics to support treatment decisions. We are all familiar with deplorable abuses of human subjects in research, such...
The Imperative to Develop the Participatory Patient
A call to action: SPM has failed to create a rigorous, evidence-based model of a participatory patient, so we’ve gotten nowhere in persuading medicine. This must change.
Cost, In Any Other Language
What does healthcare cost mean? I can’t explain it. Listen to Matt Pickering from Nat Quality Forum help us out. Consider serving as a patient rep with NQF. Listen to full 41 min episode here https://health-hats.com/pod145/ YouTube Episode Trailer Proem If a grocery...
An Easy Way we can Help Encourage Healthcare Conferences to Include Patients & Advocates
I have attended hundreds of conferences: patient experience, patient education, health tech, health literacy, shared decision making — and the best part has always been meeting other advocates, patients, and family caregivers. Too often, unfortunately, these...
Social Work and The SPM Manifesto: It Just Makes Sense
Navigating youth and their families through what is often a complex mental health system is a job that is frustrating but also an honor. As a licensed social worker, my compass through the journey is guided by a group of core values. The National Association of...
Innovation, Local Persistence
Innovation is not like switching on a lightbulb for the world. Rather it's local iterative, persistent steps. Thoughts from the Patient Experience Symposium. Listen to the podcast here https://health-hats.com/pod144/ Proem As I left the Patient Experience Symposium in...
Video Series: Doctor to Doctor – How to be an Engaged Patient
Conversations between SPM co-founder and Chief Advocacy Officer, Danny Sands MD and Annie Brewster...
Trust and Respect between Doctor and Patient are Critical to the Healing Process
Years before the first of my two breast cancer diagnoses, I shared live harp music in chemotherapy infusion units, spoke to support groups about the healing power of music, and developed a clinical trial exploring the effects of specific music on patients undergoing...
Following in the Footsteps of Others to become an Empowered Patient Advocate
I didn’t want to tell anyone about my diagnosis. I thought my family and a few close friends were enough. But I got brave one day four years ago and posted about it on social media. The outpouring of support was incredible. I thought, if I’m receiving this much...
There’s More to Participatory Medicine than Doctors and Patients
Throughout the history of the Society for Participatory Medicine (SPM), the discussions have focused on two groups of participants. The first is the patient and caregivers. SPM’s work, as illustrated in the Manifesto, has been dedicated to ensuring that members of...
