e-Patient Dave

Power to the Patient!

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A mistake, and an apology to Medicine X

Medicine X 2016 promo graphic

In life, in relationships, and in social movements, sometimes things get messy. Despite all the things I’m committed to, I made a mistake last fall while extremely over-tired, and behaved offensively to someone I didn’t even know, a volunteer at the wonderful Stanford Medicine X conference (MedX), about which I’ve written so favorably here and on e-patients.net and even in the BMJ. They’ve decided to ask me to sit it out for a year (i.e. not attend), and I accept it – it’s reasonable. I apologize to MedX and I apologize to the volunteer.

I believe in introspection – “the examined life,” as they say – and continuous self-improvement. So later I’ll say a bit more about what I’ve learned while thinking about this. (Update: that post is here.)

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Opioids 2: the supply side of the problem – like lethal brush fires

Source: WIkipedia ("Harris Fire"
Source: Wikipedia (“Harris Fire”) outside San Diego, 2007

Last minute update:
Yesterday, as I was drafting this, federal officials arrested six former employees of a drug company for flat-out bribing some doctors to overprescribe fentanyl, which is 40-50x stronger than heroin, the cause of many opioid deaths.

As I’ve said in other posts, this is a complicated subject so don’t jump to conclusions until you’ve read it.

Yesterday, in Opioids. Alarm, and I mean YOU, I posted about how dreadful and drastic the opioids problem has gotten, citing (as just one example) a small high school in Maine where five percent of kids have been dying in every class. Think of how many were in your graduating class, and imagine 1/20th of them dying before graduation.

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An examined life in an unfolding movement

Yesterday I wrote about a mistake I made last year at Medicine X, behaving unfairly to a volunteer while over-tired. At the end I said “I believe in introspection – ‘the examined life,’ as they say – and continuous self-improvement,” and that I’d be saying more about what I’ve learned.

In potentially troubling times, what makes a difference is what you’re committed to, because that’s where your compass points even when things get bumpy. My goal in this essay is to close out the episode having learned something. Here’s what I see.

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Quick year-end wrap – and winter retreat.

Christmas wreath HeatherKnitz

Through Monday, January 11 I’ll be on reduced availability, for a period of “retreat and think.” It’s not a full-bore vacation; I’ll be reading and writing (and blogging), but I won’t be responding to most emails.

I can still be reached for anything time-sensitive and I will still monitor contacts from media and potential clients, per the Contact page.

Year-end wrap:

Here’s a list of my favorites on this site from 2015.  I’ll repeat something I said in August:
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A patient to be inducted into the Healthcare Internet Hall of Fame

HIHOF website badge
Click to visit this year’s inductee page

As an activist for the patient movement – a social change movement – I look for and often cite signs of real change in the establishment, documenting that it’s increasingly accepting patient voices as a real part of the future of medicine. Examples:

  • 2011: TEDx Maastricht was the first TED conference to prominently feature patients as its speakers, produced by Radboud University Medical Center (UMC) in the Netherlands

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Speaker Academy #26: To hone your skills, eight great TED Talks

Screen grab of TED public speaking playlist
Before public speaking…
If you’ve got a presentation to give at work or school — or are perhaps getting ready to speak at a TEDx event? — we recommend these talks to help get you pumped up.

Thanks to college near-classmate (a year behind) Larry Fagan MD for this, which was in turn pointed out to him by one of his students, Sarah Aerni. (I met Larry for the first time last month at the Stanford Medicine X conference!)

All told these will take 80 minutes. If you’re not willing to spend that on being a better speaker, you’re not a cadet. :) The roster of talks:

  1. Julian Treasure: How to speak so that people want to listen A whole lot of practical skill in these ten minutes. (If you don’t care about “so people want to listen,” you haven’t been paying attention to this series.)
  2. Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are. Guaranteed to make you laugh and think.
  3. Joe Kowan: How I beat stage fright
  4. Melissa Marshall: Talk nerdy to me <=oo, I haven’t even watched this (as I write, here) and I’m already in love
  5. Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action <= he spoke at the TEDx where I did
  6. Sebastian Wernicke: Lies, damned lies and statistics (about TEDTalks) <= I used Sebastian’s thinking in planning my talk
  7. Megan Washington: Why I live in mortal dread of public speaking
  8. Clint Smith: The danger of silence – a five minute talk with 263 comments. Why?? Pay attention and think.

Enjoy, and learn.

This is the latest in the Speaker Academy series, which started here. 

Next in the series: #27: Impact speakers! Get the “Official TED Guide” to speaking