I met an extraordinary man last week at the Medicine 2.0 conference in Toronto.
He goes by the name of e-patient Dave, formerly known as Dave deBronkart of Nashua, NH.
He gave the opening keynote talk, entitled "Gimme My Damn Data." He's posted the slides online.
In the last two years, Dave was diagnosed with - and so far has fought off - a Stage IV, Grade 4 kidney cancer with tumors in both lungs, several bones, and muscle tissue. He's now working fulltime to apply his analysis and communication skills to what he calls participatory medicine.
I did a video interview with Dave and clips from it will be appearing on HealthNewsReview.org soon. I shared our work so far on that project with attendees of the Medicine 2.0 conference. And I was pleased to be joined by the originators of the Media Doctor Australia and Canada web projects - Dr. David Henry and Alan Cassels.
It was GREAT to finally meet you in person.
For sure, your service has been an important part of my own education, empowering and enabling e-patients who want to get in the game. Thank you SO much. Looking forward to spreading the word more and more widely.