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February 18, 2020 By e-Patient Dave 10 Comments

I didn’t die, so now I’m SEVENTY??

Tonight’s birthday cake

Nashua NH, Feb 18 – You know what happens when you don’t die, and then you KEEP not dying?? Years keep getting added to your age! Who knew?? And it doesn’t stop!

Five years ago I blogged I’m 65! That’s *really* old (you’ll be amused). But to be honest, as this magic “decade” birthday approached I was getting creeped out. I’m not alone: upon turning 70 in 2004, Gloria Steinem, who had famously declared “This is what 40 looks like” and “This is what 50 looks like,” told Time, “This one has the ring of mortality.”

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Aging, patient engagement 10 Comments

March 28, 2018 By e-Patient Dave 6 Comments

Alumni club dinner: How e-patients can help healthcare achieve its potential

After eight years of speeches at conferences, I’ve observed that while medicine achieves incredible miracles that were impossible a generation ago – like saving my sorry life – it still falls short of potential more often than necessary. Lots of people write big fat books about it, but some problems don’t change, which raises the question: what can we tell consumers of the system, patients, that will help them get the best care when they’re in need?

So that’s a new series of speeches I’ll be doing, not just at big conferences but at local meetings in cities and towns, hospitals and community centers. These talks aren’t designed to change the healthcare system much; to the contrary, they’ll empower ordinary people who use the system to help the system do its best.

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Filed Under: Aging, Culture change, Health data, Innovation, patient engagement, Patients as Consumers, public speaking 6 Comments

May 12, 2016 By e-Patient Dave 6 Comments

“I’m gonna live live live until I die”: new speech about palliative care at #cccc16

e-Patient Dave CCCC title slideI spoke Thursday to a completely new kind of audience: the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California, which is involved in palliative care.

Palliative care is not a synonym for hospice or end of life. It’s about making life with a disease more comfortable, which can be combined with curative care – it does not mean you’ve abandoned hope of a cure. But many doctors, nurses and insurance companies don’t know this yet. Be informed, and speak up! 

Although it was a new topic, the talk was a tremendous success. Here’s the video, which was captured (at no cost!) by @KSAust (Kris Austin) on Twitter using Periscope. (Email subscribers, if you can’t see the video, click the headline to come online.)

It’s about changing our cultural conversation

I compose every talk for the individual audience. There’s often a lot of overlap with previous talks, but this one was very different: I’ve never talked about this subject. It ended with an enthusiastic standing ovation, which always means the message got through.

Thanks to my barbershop singing hobby, especially my chorus, the Nashua Granite Statesmen, from whom I first heard this arrangement of the song that was the title of this talk: “I’m gonna live until I die.” At the start I pointed out that Frank Sinatra introduced this song the year I was born (1950), and at the end I said that we pass our culture down to the next generation: the talk ended with a performance of the song by one of the Harmony Explosion summer choruses, where we barbershoppers pass the tradition along to the next generation.

Seriously, spread the word, because hardly anyone knows: Palliative treatment can be combined with curative ones. It’s not a synonym for hospice, and does not mean giving up hope – it means making it easier to cope with the effects of a disease or its treatment.

Filed Under: Aging, Culture change, Events 6 Comments

April 26, 2016 By e-Patient Dave Leave a Comment

Excellent podcast: “Better Health While Aging”

Leslie Kernisan Podcast CoverI have a confession: as e-geeky as I may be, I missed the boat when podcasts got popular, and I never got into them. At last, here’s one that’s worth solving that: Better Health While Aging by Dr. Leslie Kernisan.

I wish I could explain things as clearly as she explains geriatrics – which, as she says in every episode, is “the art and science of adapting healthcare so that it works better for older adults.” (Isn’t that the clearest definition you’ve heard for that word?)

I’ve become addicted – her voice is so clear and friendly; she words things (especially touchy issues) in such a way that you can get the message and hear what you need to hear, without getting clobbered with medicalese or stuff you’d rather not think about.

I’m not giving anyone elder care right now (nor receiving it), but having turned 65 last year I have an interest in my future, and I’ve seen lots of friends and relatives experience elder issues. You know what my thought is about aging? If medicine keeps you from dying, you’re gonna get old! And no better time to learn about it and think about it than right now.

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Filed Under: Aging Leave a Comment

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