Tom Ferguson

 

patient networks

Healthcare Out Loud

Last fall, at the e-Patient Connections conference, I gave a sneak preview of some survey results which are set to be have been released on the Pew Internet site on Monday, Feb. 28. I hoped to spark new ideas for a savvy, plugged-in audience and I ended up surprising even myself with some of what [...]

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key people, net-friendly docs, pt/doc co-care, Why PM

Blowing your mind with Doc Tom’s seven laws of self care

Regular readers know that our founder, “Doc Tom” Ferguson, was an absolute visionary who saw that patients have a much bigger role in their own health than most people realize – at least in our culture.  The white paper at top right of this site is the culmination of his life’s thinking. Through some obsessive [...]

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news & gossip, pt/doc co-care, trends & principles, Why PM

PeoplesPharmacy.com in NYTimes: “Not All Drugs Are the Same After All”

We’re thrilled to see our Joe and Terry Graedon, of PeoplesPharmacy.com, in the New York Times (“Not All Drugs Are the Same After All”) telling a truth that the FDA hasn’t figured out: generics don’t always work the same as the brand name drug. Joe and Terry exemplify the participatory medicine movement. He’s a pharmacologist, and she’s a PhD [...]

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e-pts resources, positive patterns, trends & principles

Health News Review launches new site with improved e-patient training

There’s a new resource for a vital e-patient skill: reading health news responsibly. It helps us be smarter before we bring new findings to the attention of other patients and our providers – not to mention smarter for our own benefit. When “Doc Tom” Ferguson defined “e-patient” in the 1990s, “Educated” wasn’t one of his [...]

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general

Participatory medicine and health data rights on NPR

NPR’s Morning Edition story, “Patients Turn to Online Buddies for Help Healing,” combined research and real-life examples, participatory medicine and health data rights. Much of what I said during my interview with Joseph Shapiro is based on what I’ve written and read here on e-patients.net, so, first, thank you. I’ve already started answering questions on [...]

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e-patient stories, others' e-patient stories, positive patterns, Why PM

From incurable to “We can now call you cured”: Cheryl Greene’s story

Here’s another true e-patient story from one of our team. Cheryl Greene is third from the left in the banner at top of this blog. She’s a long-time friend of our founder “Doc Tom” Ferguson, a board member of the Society for Participatory Medicine, executive producer of DrGreene.com (AMA: “the pioneer physician web site on [...]

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net-friendly docs, pt/doc co-care, reforming hc, trends & principles, Why PM

Why the Journal of Participatory Medicine?

Next week at the  Connected Health Symposium in Boston, the Society for Participatory Medicine will launch its new journal. In keeping with the society’s spirit of physician-patient partnership, the Co-Editors in Chief are a physician and a patient: Charlie Smith MD (the primary physician of our founder “Doc Tom” Ferguson) and Jessie Gruman, Ph.D., who [...]

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demographics, trends & principles

The Social Life of Health Information

The Pew Internet/California HealthCare Foundation report, The Social Life of Health Information, is packed with new findings from a survey of 2,253 adults, including 502 cell-phone interviews, conducted in either English or Spanish. We spent a bundle of money on making this a random sample of the U.S. population, but guess who got a call [...]

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