As I build my new career in healthcare, speaker fees are my main income. Here’s one I did for free.
Usually when I speak, one of the first things I have to say is “Trust me, your time will come. ‘Patient’ is not a third-person word.” Well, I got to skip that part in June when I spoke to a bunch of people who already have my disease. And boy did we surpass the normal subject matter.
The event was the third annual Kidney Cancer Symposium sponsored by the DF/HCC, aka the Dana Farber / Harvard Cancer Center. That mouthful includes my hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess. Speakers included my doctors, surgeon Andrew Wagner and oncologist David McDermott. (With MDs and Mxxx’s up the wazoo; I love those guys but I gave up on keeping tabs on their credentials. To me they just saved my life.)
They invited me to speak about being an e-patient. Couldn’t turn THAT one down. 35 minutes:
Immense thanks to them for making this event FREE (including lunch) to all patients, and offering the video for free distribution to all who weren’t there.
They say the videos of other talks will be available on their site shortly – with full credentials for the doctors, probably. :–) Thanks to them for letting me have it first!
We have many, many requests for a Kindle, eBook (Sony) or iPad version of Laugh, Sing, and Eat Like a Pig, and the time has come to git ‘er done. BUT (and it’s a big but), for this book there are decisions to be made, so it’s time to crowdsource: what’s our best approach?
For reasons I’ll never understand, “unboxing videos” are a big thing these days: some geek will turn on a camcorder while they unpack some cool new gadget they just received. Examples: Unboxing the iPhone 4 (simplistic, unedited, 1:29), Xbox 360 Unboxing and Review (slick, fancy, edited, 5:58).
Well, my friend Mark Graban, author of the excellent healthcare improvement book Lean Hospitals, just received his copy of my new book Laugh, Sing and Eat Like a Pig (Amazon), and he was so excited he decided to do an unboxing video of it.
Speaker fees are how I fund my work, allowing me to do the research and learning that inform my talks, and allowing my participation on behalf of patients in policy meetings in Washington.
I want to be hired for more speaking engagements, so I’d like to share some feedback I just got.
Today I delivered the keynote address at the 13th annual ICSI/IHI Colloquium. ICSI is the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement, and IHI is the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Both are magnificent organizations of smart caring people devoted to, well, Improvement. :–)
In the audience was Jim Conway MD, Senior VP of IHI, a tremendous speaker himself. Afterward, he wrote:
“Your content was great, your slides most impressive, and your delivery spectacular. I have no doubt – there are many in the room who are in a different place now because of you.”
That’s my purpose in every talk: to leave people in a different condition than when they walked in. My goal is to awaken new possibilities, speaking on behalf of patients everywhere – I’d even dare to say, I aim to leave people with a different view of life.
Kent Bottles MD, President of ICSI, followed up the next day with these kind words:
“e-Patient Dave gave the best keynote I have heard in years at the ICSI conference in the Twin Cities. If you want to learn and cry, book him.”
On May 12 on the ICSI blog Kent’s colleague Gary Oftedahl MD added:
“…shaking those of us in health care up to the need to pay attention, and ‘use’ the expertise and experiences of our patients. I’ve heard no one in over 30 years in medicine who has so passionately and personally captured the essence of this powerful message”
Last Tuesday I testified at a policy meeting in Washington. One point that came up was the frequent wrong impressions patients encounter among medical staff regarding medical records. The truth is, you’re entitled to a copy of your medical records. Don’t let anyone tell you “That’s not our policy”!
We also discussed how useful it would be if we had some quick, informative, entertaining training tools to convey points like that.
Well, why wait for an act of Congress? I made one up. Click to view, print, or download the full page PDF (413k).
Share freely.
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Trivia:
The clip in this flyer is from Seinfeld episode #139, “The Package.” It was first broadcast on October 17, 1996, eight weeks after HIPAA was signed into law.
Your right to your records is specified not in the law itself, but in the regulations that were written by the Executive Branch to implement the law. (That’s what regulators do: they write the regulations.)
So when this episode aired, Elaine was not entitled to her record. Today she would be.
I have exciting news and an invitation to all of Boston:
Please rearrange your life and join me, Thursday night at Scullers Jazz Club!
The news: I’m announcing my first book. It’ll be out in June. See cover art at left.
It’s my story then and now: excerpts from my online CaringBridge journal, interwoven with what I’ve since learned about e-patients and participatory medicine.
The title reflects the mind-powered approach I took to my “prognosis is grim” disease. (More on this below.)
The invitation is for all of New England to come celebrate and honor a singer who was a huge, powerful force during the course of the disease: my sister Suede. (Yes, that’s her name.)
With four CDs and a live DVD to her credit (listen to her tracks here), Suede is an independent artist with a phenomenal stage presence. Be prepared to be owned by the diva for the entire evening. You’ll see.
Thanks to Dr. Gunther Eysenbach for providing, free of charge, full unedited video of my 40 minute opening keynote at his September 2009 Medicine 2.0 Congress in Toronto.
The speech was titled “Gimme My Damn Data.” Video of this talk and others is on my Speaking page.
There’s an interesting conference April 6-7 in Bethesda Maryland, sponsored by the National Library of Medicine and the Friends of the NLM: “The ePatient: Digital and Genomic Technologies for Personalized Health Care.” It’s about 70% sold out – almost 350 of the 500 seats are gone.
Needless to say, I’m thrilled that the NLM will be hearing about e-patients.
A star-studded cast includes
Day 1 keynote by Dr. David Blumenthal (National Coordinator for Health IT)
Legendary figures Uwe Reinhardt of Princeton and Dartmouth’s Jack Wennberg
Day 2 keynote by 23andMe’s Dr. Nicholas Eriksson, PhD
"Testified in Washington as a champion of participatory medicine" – US News Best Hospitals issue, 2009
"When ICSI was looking for a great keynoter to deliver the empowered e-patient, participatory medicine message to a large audience of physicians, we soon discovered that e-Patient Dave was our #1 draft pick. We could not be more pleased" – Kent Bottles, President, Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement
"One of the most interesting people I've met this year" – Matthew Holt, The Health Care Blog
"Working his ass off to get us to pay attention to the power of the internet." – Jay Parkinson MD MPH, HelloHealth
"Face of the e-Patient movement started by the late Tom Ferguson" – Future Health 100
"A must-follow #Health20 hero on Twitter" – Brian Ahier, "govfresh" open air government blog
On May 12 
There’s an interesting conference April 6-7 in Bethesda Maryland, sponsored by the National Library of Medicine and the Friends of the NLM: “The ePatient: Digital and Genomic Technologies for Personalized Health Care.” It’s about 70% sold out – almost 350 of the 500 seats are gone.
