For the past several years a number of themes have repeatedly arisen in my work that aren’t widely discussed elsewhere, and I’ve wanted to make them available to wider audiences, so I’ve started recording occasional “slidecasts” – I play the slides on my computer and narrate. Here’s the latest. It’s a core topic in rethinking the patient-provider relationship: paternal caring, which is necessary in some situations, vs the increasing shift to patient empowerment, autonomy, and even emancipation – the removal of constraints.

I did this for my head & neck cancer patient friends in New Zealand, whom I met during my fellowship last fall. We’ve kept in touch on their Facebook group. On Thursday two of them, Maureen Jansen and Tammy von Keisenberg, are speaking about “health literacy” – a subject that’s misunderstood far too often, and which is often tied to discussions of whether patients should or can be independent to one extent or another. Food for thought.

Thanks once again to the sponsors and organizers of that fellowship: Spark Revera (New Zealand’s telecomms company, totally into the emerging world of e-health) especially @eHealthDoc Will Reedy MD, and Waitemata District Health Board, especially head & neck cancer surgeon David Grayson MD @Sasanof and its “i3” innovation center headed by Dr. Penny Andrew.