Patients and caregivers writing on KevinMD about the experience of illness and the health care system from the other side of the exam table: navigating care, the doctor-patient relationship, being heard, and what patients want physicians to understand. Physicians who have become patients write here too. For the record of what pain patients and physicians have said to each other about opioids and chronic pain since 2007, with patient authors cited at the same weight as physicians, see Opioids: what physicians and pain patients say, in their own words. For what patients, families, and physicians have said about dying, hospice, and the decisions families face at the end of life, see End of life: what physicians say, in their own words. For what women and the physicians who treat them have said about pregnancy, menopause, and the conditions dismissed for years, see Women's health: what physicians say, in their own words. For what physicians have said about consent, honesty, and who decides, see Medical ethics: what physicians say, in their own words.

Meaningful offline dialogue creates online inspiration

Patient
May 26, 2011

I’m all for the values of social media, as evidenced by my frequent use of Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and LinkedIn.

Recently, I realized again the value of a telephone conversation. I was on the phone with someone who I consider a mentor, someone who has fiercely guided me through my journey into social media without knowing the power of what was being done. It was the best 20 minutes of …

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Meaningful offline dialogue creates online inspiration

How denying patient requests may not impact patient satisfaction

Patient
May 24, 2011

Does physician denial of patient requests result in decreased patient satisfaction?

The short answer: No.

At least not in the context of a strong physician-patient relationship.

Many physicians have legitimate concerns about the prospects of having their salary or level reimbursement linked to patient satisfaction. I would too given the way most health …

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How denying patient requests may not impact patient satisfaction

Improve health journalism to improve consumer knowledge and decisions

Patient
May 23, 2011

Gary Schwitzer is Publisher of HealthNewsReview.org, where he and his team grade daily health news coverage. He works to improve health journalism with the goal of improving consumer knowledge and decision-making. He was the founding editor-in-chief of the MayoClinic.com site. While his guest lecture at Web Strategies for Health Communication was on health news reporting, I realized that his review criteria seemed equally applicable to any health content …

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Improve health journalism to improve consumer knowledge and decisions

When chronic illness strikes: Tips on talking to family and close friends

Patient
May 23, 2011

In the summer of 2001, I was preparing to begin my 19th year on the faculty of U.C. Davis School of Law. Then I got sick with what the doctors thought was an acute viral infection. I have yet to recover.

Being diagnosed with a chronic illness or condition can take a toll on your relationships, partly because all of the …

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When chronic illness strikes: Tips on talking to family and close friends

Cancer will always be a part of a patient’s identity

Patient
May 20, 2011

So, you’ve cut off your breast(s) and poisoned and radiated your body.  You’ve hit all your medical milestones – surgery, chemo, herceptin. You’ve recovered and the  hair on your legs has grown back to plague you, and you have gotten back to a normal life.  Work, jobs, family. Shaving.

Yet you are changed.  You didn’t expect this, but each time you get dressed or undressed, you can’t help but notice your mastectomy …

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Cancer will always be a part of a patient’s identity

How patients can handle bad medical news

Patient
May 20, 2011

When bad medical news hits, the blow can be devastating.

Shock is almost always the first thing people feel, followed by anger, fear and often a profound sense of sadness.

At times like these it came be extremely difficult to collect your thoughts and decide what to do next.  Your head is likely to flood with questions that arrive at various moments – in the middle of the night, in the shower, …

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How patients can handle bad medical news

Using Glee for teachable moments to teens

Patient
May 19, 2011

I am a “Gleek.” I admit it.

A Gleek is a self-described lover of Fox’s show, Glee. The show features a diverse group of teens who are in the school’s show choir. Glee focuses on the lives of these teens, in and out of school, while emphasizing certain storyline elements with entertaining Broadway musical-type performances.

The show itself, however, is not the point of this post. Last week was an unexpected …

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Using Glee for teachable moments to teens

Navigating any health care facility requires sophisticated literacy skills

Patient
May 19, 2011

by Rima Rudd, ScD

We take the written word for granted.

Signs and billboards are everywhere – offering directional information, alerts, warnings, and advertisements. Streets, public squares, buildings, agencies, and institutions are numbered and named. We are surrounded by the written word in public locations and within public and private institutions. Individual entrances and even elevators in some large buildings carry names. The lobby, the inside …

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Navigating any health care facility requires sophisticated literacy skills

How the quality of the scientific literature impacts the evidence

Patient
May 18, 2011

by Tom Lang and George Lundberg, MD

A not-so-obvious truth is that evidence-based medicine is literature-based medicine.

That is, the quality of the scientific literature directly affects the quality of the evidence.

Quality, in turn, depends in large measure on reporting research completely and accurately.

In response to ample evidence that such quality is often missing from the literature, dozens of reporting guidelines, such as the CONSORT Statement for reporting randomized trials, are …

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How the quality of the scientific literature impacts the evidence

5 rules for living well with a chronic illness

Patient
May 14, 2011

Dr. Elvira Aletta is a clinical psychologist with a unique perspective on what it’s like to live with a chronic illness. In her early twenties, she was diagnosed with nephrotic syndrome, a rare kidney disease that usually affects young boys. Then in her thirties, she came down with a chronic autoimmune condition called scleroderma.

She’d never heard of that, either. She describes her …

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5 rules for living well with a chronic illness

Predicting how much impact mental illness has in a person’s life

Patient
May 11, 2011

Why is it that some people have a psychiatric disorder and they bounce back and it’s not a big deal, while others struggle terribly? For the unlucky ones, mental illness defines them.

Here are some factors that affect how much impact psychiatric illness has in a person’s life.

  • The severity of the symptoms. Any way you dice it, mild-to-moderate anxiety can often be hidden …

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Predicting how much impact mental illness has in a person’s life

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Bereavement related depression and consoling a new widow

Patient
May 8, 2011

I am really enjoying my geriatrics rotation.

Although my attending preceptor is primarily a geriatrician, and practices deep in the heart of retiree central in southeast Florida, he also sees some patients who are younger. I took a history on a patient who was younger than me today, in her early thirties.

She started off complaining about insomnia and headaches, and then said …

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Bereavement related depression and consoling a new widow

3 ways to deal with serious illness and engage the health care system

Patient
May 6, 2011

I am deeply conflicted about how we as a society have come to use physicians, medical science and advanced technology in our lives.

Everything has its place in life, but we have given modern medicine with its focus on the chemistry and physics of illness too prominent of a place.  We’ve forgotten that we are not treating diseases; we are helping people with diseases.

Many readers, especially those with lifestyle diseases, can …

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3 ways to deal with serious illness and engage the health care system

Be a boring patient, not an interesting patient

Patient
May 6, 2011

“She’s a really interesting patient!”

The doctor visiting the lady in question at home is correct.  Nothing about her illness either has been routine.  The progression of her disease has confounded her regular doctors for months.  Nothing about her condition is normal.  Medications have not worked as expected.  The original diagnosis — Parkinson’s — is in question.  All my training and expertise is inadequate, for I am an ENT surgeon, not …

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Be a boring patient, not an interesting patient

Improving atrial fibrillation communication between doctors and patients

Patient
May 6, 2011

by Mellanie True Hills

I have heard from thousands of atrial fibrillation patients who have shared their afib experiences with me. For so many of us, the diagnosis and treatment of afib is confusing and scary.

To improve communication between patients and their health-care providers, and ultimately, provide better care, I recently shared with doctors at the Western Atrial Fibrillation …

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Improving atrial fibrillation communication between doctors and patients

Best hospital lists influence consumer decision making

Patient
May 5, 2011

We all like lists. US News & World Report has told us for years which colleges are considered the top in the nation. Castle Connolly tells us which are the “Top Doctors” in our community and Car & Driver gives us a ranking of cars by type.

In The Order of Things, Malcolm Gladwell pokes serious holes in some of our most revered rankings and lists.

If …

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Best hospital lists influence consumer decision making

The mission of the hospice and palliative care is to ease patient suffering

Patient
May 4, 2011

Until recently, I had but the vaguest idea of what hospice and palliative care and medicine (hpm) entailed.

Until tuning into the #hpm Twitter group  – hospice and palliative medicine – both words conjured a gloomy atmosphere of despair, grief, anger, pain en route to dying. I wondered at those working in the field: they must be a bit weird.

I now know differently, …

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The mission of the hospice and palliative care is to ease patient suffering

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