The impact of research has to be defined in terms of patient benefit, says Mark Taylor […]
Mark Taylor: What impact does research have?
Category: Patient perspectives
David Gilbert: What’s stopping healthcare organisations appointing a patient director?
Dear Chief Executive, What’s stopping you appointing a Patient Director? I know you are struggling to keep your organisation’s head above water. I know the demands of the system and the seemingly inescapable tide of pressures—the demographics, the “expectations,” the limited capacity, the desire to uphold and even improve quality and safety. The money. The […]
Cristian R. Montenegro: Improving interactions between clinicians and patients
Sociology has tried, with mixed success, to define a realm of analysis that goes beyond the individual, and to grasp what is “in-between,” using names like “interaction,” “structures,” “communication,” or “culture.” I mention this because, if we want to come up with ways to improve the relationship between doctors and patients, we need to try […]
Simon Denegri: Is a better public debate about patient data on the horizon?
Few would argue that the public have been well served by the debate about how their data can support care and research now and in the future. After the shipwreck of care.data in 2014, efforts to communicate with the public have stalled. Indecision about the best way forward has gripped the medical research and healthcare […]
Suzanne Gordon: The power of thank you
I recently saw the power of thank you highlighted on two different occasions in healthcare settings. On the first, I was following a team of physicians who were conducting patient rounds on the acute care of the elderly unit at the San Francisco VA Health Care System (SFVAHCS), Fort Miley. The group moving from room […]
Liz Salmi: Tomorrow’s patients will demand greater transparency and openness
I began blogging about my experience as a person living with brain cancer after I had my first symptom—a grand mal seizure—after my 29th birthday in July 2008. Unlike a traditional journal, my blog has no privacy settings. People from around the world can read and learn, through my experience, about what it is like […]
Tessa Richards: Words that annoy, phrases that grate
What is acceptable or unacceptable medical terminology in today’s world, asks Tessa Richards. […]
Jemma Batte: The positive power of transparency
Jemma Batte discusses the importance of information sharing to help improve doctor-patient relationships. […]
Cristin Lind: Parenting a child in hospital
Despite the fact that my son is considered a “sick kid”—a child with multiple, chronic conditions—he actually hasn’t been in hospital for years. About a month ago, his winter cold turned into pneumonia, and we’ve been reacquainted with hospital life with a vengeance. Parenting a child in hospital for the first time in nearly a […]
Sharon Roman: Notes from the less comfortable chair
As someone with chronic disease and comorbidity, I have benefitted from the knowledge and expertise of a great number of doctors. Sometimes you’ve only known me as an image on a screen or a cluster of numbers and counts—another name and health number—the ubiquitous patient. Some of you I have met in passing, a shorter […]