e-Patients Blog
The blog of the Society for Participatory Medicine. Want to be a contributor?
Do You Know What FDA Approval of a Drug Means?
Continuing the thread of the difficulty of making good decisions about prescription drugs: It appears that many of us think that FDA approval of a drug means safer and better...Not so fast:...
Case Study on ‘Autonomy in Jeopardy’ for Mental Health Patients
The Journal of Participatory Medicine has published a new case study entitled "Autonomy in Jeopardy: Contrasting Participatory Health Models with Patient Decision Making Under Mental Health Law." The authors examine the problem of how to achieve patient participation...
Tami Boehmer: Hope versus statistics
Guest blogger Tami Boehmer shares a recent conversation with e-Patient Dave about the pitfalls of survival statistics and the power of hope. Tami's blog, "From Incurable to Incredible," is at www.miraclesurvivors.com. I recently had the honor of speaking with Dave...
Doctor Pay Too High?
I just received this press release and suspect the original study will get a fair amount of attention. While the original research article in Health Affairs requires a subscription, the press release tells most of the story. I encourage our readers to have a look at...
ONC’s new Query Health initiative – what’s in it for e-Patients?
This is a guest post by SPM member John Sharp, Manager of Research Informatics at the Cleveland Clinic. John gets it about how information empowers healthcare and e-patients. I first met him at Medicine 2.0 in Toronto, 2009, after which he wrote an article for our...
“Listening to the Patient Voice” – a Planetree story
I've long been surprised that Planetree.org is not better known by everyone who talks about patient-centered care, patient engagement, etc. I attended one of their webcasts in April and wrote about a great booklet they discussed. I'm taking the liberty of pasting in...
Jonena Relth: Participatory medicine: my first-hand account
Jonena Relth submitted this guest post to share her very positive experience with her surgeon. I was being prepped for surgery last week and my surgeon, Dr. Davies, came in to discuss the procedure. He explained to me that he had reviewed my file several times and...
When Patients Band Together: Far From a Disgrace
When it comes to news sites, I love scanning readers' comments as much as the original articles. Comments are an unfiltered feed, a window into public opinion (in other words, catnip for someone like me). One thread caught my eye recently. Ron Winslow wrote a very...
The Journal has just published a commentary by SPM member Kathy Kastner, "My 8-Point Participatory Philosophy: What Makes Me a Participatory Patient." The author describes the "aha moment" when she decided to become a participatory patient and shares the attributes...
Just Say “Know” to Drugs: A Proposal to Improve Prescription Drug Information
Have you followed the long and painful efforts to improve the information prescription drug manufacturers are required to provide us? Really, given that almost half of us in the US take at least one prescription medication daily, you’d think this would be a high...
How To Dump A Doctor
I have known Sharon Anderson for many years and watched her eAdvocacy evolve. A nine year leiomyosarcoma (LMS -- a very rare cancer) survivor, Sharon has tirelessly used her social work skills to help LMS patients directly while actively promoting an increase in...
e-Patient Classic: Elyse Chapman, April 2009
Today I heard from a friend who's had a tumor discovered. S/he decided to fire the current doctor, who would not return phone messages and was "intellectually lazy" - not interested in pursuing ideas my friend brought up that might require some effort but could...