Corruption is “the abuse of power or position to acquire a personal benefit.” For individual doctors corrupt behaviour would include ordering unnecessary tests, prescribing irrelevant medication, or performing unwarranted operations in order to make money. Such corruption may be commonplace in many countries where doctors charge patients real money for their services. Surely such things […]
Category: Patient perspectives
Nicki Haywood: A carer’s perspective on how doctors can help patients with MND
When Mum was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND); it was to change my Mum’s life, it was to change our families’ lives. At the start we were thrown into an unexpected situation with limited knowledge on how to manage and cope with this situation. We didn’t know what challenges we would face, or how […]
David Gilbert: Patient as expert
During my psychiatric years, I could only dream of being an equal to health professionals. These days therefore, to be valued as an “expert” is seductive. But we have to move beyond flattery as it makes for an ego-fuelled heart and soggy mind. I was one of five on the patient panel at the recent […]
Tessa Richards: Fewer tablets, more self management support
It’s easy to lose confidence and withdraw from life when you become ill and lose your job. “Anne” struggled for 20 years with multiple long term conditions and a drug regimen of 28 tablets a day before going on a six week self management course which “turned [her] life around.” She and other patients spoke […]
Paul Wicks: Making sure conferences are “Patients Included”
Picture this: you’re a medical professional and are about to open the doors to a conference you’ve spent years pulling together. You’ve booked your venue, have your sponsors lined up, got top headliners to give keynotes, picked your Twitter hashtag, and have invited every industry pro to be a part of the event. In walk […]
Jon Stamford: Patients must help design clinical trials
It is a truth universally acknowledged that clinical trials are the bedrock upon which all medical progress is based. Without successful trials new medicines are not introduced, new treatments are not developed, and new understanding is not gleaned. The furtherance of knowledge hinges upon the successful design, execution, and interpretation of clinical trials. […]
Tessa Richards: Is your conference “Patients Included?”
The conference circuit is buzzing. If you are not physically caught up in the whirl there are plenty of colourful twitter feeds to follow—last week’s #EvidenceLive for example. Next week #Quality2015 will be a hot hashtag as around 3000 or so delegates will gather at this year’s International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare […]
The economic value of patients in the improvement of healthcare
Despite a growing awareness of patients’ crucial part in contributing to healthcare, the ways by which this can be achieved are still limited. For patients’ innovative power to be efficiently utilised, we strongly believe that patients need to be given a more equal and profitable role in the healthcare system. By “equal,” we mean that […]
Zackary Berger and Dave deBronkart: “Precision medicine” needs patient partnership
US President Obama recently presented the outlines of a US$215 million plan for “precision medicine” through support of research funded by the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute. Presented as “healthcare tailored to you,” it would take into account “individual differences in people’s genes, microbiomes, environments, and lifestyles—making possible more effective, targeted treatments […]
Carolyn Thomas: Yet another cardiac risk calculator?
To see for myself how reliable the new NHS heart disease risk calculator is, I completed all required fields exactly as I would have answered seven years ago. That was just before I survived what physicians still call “the widowmaker heart attack,” caused by a fully occluded left anterior descending coronary artery. (By the way, […]