e-Patient Dave

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Amazing: THE Tom Peters to join our patient engagement session Tuesday

You can’t make this stuff up. Here I am, a cancer patient from Nashua, New Hampshire who goes around raving enthusiastically about engaging patients in better care, and out of nowhere, tomorrow in a session I’m running, Tom Peters has something to say, and asked to comment. So though he wasn’t planned as a speaker, he’ll be in my session.

Thud.

Tom Peters(That’s the banner from the top of his site, TomPeters.com.) He’s the co-author of the absolute classic business book In Search of Excellence, and sixteen books since then. Here’s his Wikipedia page, that book’s Wikipedia page, his Twitter @tom_peters, his other books.

So, what is mister Management Guru doing, asking to comment at a medical conference? In the interest of time, I’ll interview myself.

What’s this event?

This is at the Eleventh Annual Quality Colloquium, at Harvard, today through Wednesday. It’s a top-tier conference on improving quality and safety in medicine.

What do you mean by that?
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A dermatologist responds: “Who the heck is charging $3000 for Mohs first stage?”

Well, that’s not exactly what he said. And I’m not even sure he’s a dermatologist, though it sure sounds like it.

For newcomers, this is the latest in a four month saga, including these posts:

Today (Saturday 6/16) on the “decision” post, commenter “Joe” (apparently a dermatologist) said the most interesting, thought-provoking stuff I’ve ever seen anywhere about basal cell carcinoma treatment options:
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Decision: Just scrape it off. (“ED&C”)

April 23, after biopsy
April 24 (11 weeks after the biopsy cut part of it off)

 

November photo, before biopsy
November (before biopsy)

As regular readers know, I have a basal cell carcinoma on my jaw line, and since I have $10,000 deductible insurance and have had really bad experiences trying to get a straight answer on costs, I decided to be very proactive about researching my options. I’ve decided, and the treatment is today.

I’ll have a lot to say later about the process I went through. Long story short, I’ve decided not to buy Mohs surgery, which everyone seems to agree is the Cadillac treatment; its cost to me, out of pocket, would be several thousand dollars, and the treatment I chose will be under $1,000: ED&C – electrodessication and curettage (Wikipedia). (Under local anesthetic they slice off some tissue, zorch it with the electrozorcher, and repeat until they’re satisfied.) (I have a lush technical vocabulary, huh?)

Quick background:

Summary of my research: (Much more detail to come in other posts) [Read more…]

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Happy 90th, Dad

Today would have been my dad’s 90th birthday: he was born March 27, 1922. Here’s a picture in his later years.

Dad died in 2005. He lived a full life, for better or worse, from aircraft mechanic in World War II to microfilm salesman to vice president of a division at 3M. He loved his hobbies, puttering in garage or basement – when I was a kid he had classic and antique cars, but dagnabbit he got rid of them before I got my license. (I wonder why?) Then it was boats – he’d learned to sail on Long Island Sound, and taught us on the Chesapeake near Mount Vernon, then on Minnesota lakes, a houseboat on the St. Croix, and then sailing and rowing in Maryland, off the Cheseapeake near Annapolis.

I miss him.

In my college years, and after, I was the ever-rebellious anti-establishment type; he was the ever-positive Dale Carnegie “positive thinking” salesman. Sometimes when I railed against something, he’d ask: “What do you want? What change are you looking for?” (He strongly favored non-noisy / non-polluting forms of boating, but instead of Dad's home made button for his causeattacking, he promoted his positive alternative: the “Société Nauticale de Propulsion Humaine,” with its faux French title and fake Latin motto on the button at left.)

I’d roll my adolescent eyes, but today his words live in the back of my mind, and sometimes come out of my mouth.

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Links for e-Patient Boot Camp #003 (Florida Health Care Coalition)

Here are links to content discussed in the e-Patient Boot Camp Monday, and my keynote and session Tuesday. Thanks to the Florida Health Care Coalition’s board for supporting the boot camp – I look forward to following up with participants!

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Experiences exploring BCC patient communities, part 1

On my first post about my BCC (basal cell carcinoma), seeking patient communities and other information, I was pleased that people submitted four communities.  I posted them to my very informal patient communities page:

Tonight (Feb 20) I’m exploring them for the first time.  I didn’t find any useful information yet, so you may want to come back another day.:)

  • If you know of other communities, please submit the URL in a comment below.

This won’t be of interest to most people – it’s mostly for people who want to study what a site should be, and the process of exploring.

Preface – my purpose and context

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