Blogging Gives Patients Freedom Of The Press...and That's Freedom to Be Heard

by Dave deBrokart - Part 2
@epatient Dave
www.epatientdave.com

The importance of the movement participatory medicine cannot be underestimated.

Consider what happened to me.

I started a blog because I'd beaten a usually fatal cancer. ( Good enough). I wrote what I felt like, ranging from thanking my doctors to ranting about statistics and touting my hobby ( barbershop singing). Then I got interested in health care and wrote about that but not that much.

But in 2009, I wrote about my medical records, and in less than a month it bent federal policy. I'd discovered my insurance billing history was a mess, and unbeknownst to me, the post stomped in mud puddle of policy being discussed in Washington. Twelve days later it was on the front page of the newspaper. Pretty soon the proposed policy was ditched - because one middle aged guy from New Hampshire in a recliner in New Hampshire was just writing what he was thinking.

I didn't even try to do this, but blogging generated invitations to federal policy meetings, and invitations to speak at conferences, to doctors, patients and policy people. Who would of thought?

Perhaps you're like Amy Tenderich of DiabetesMine, who simply wanted to connect with others to discuss her condition. Or, you're like Kelly Young of RAWarrior.com, who started writing about her condition and soon attracted thousands of followers. You might be like Robin Smith and her friends for the Cushing's community, who discovered each other across vast distances. Each of these patient blogs was started by someone who initially had no idea whether anyone would listen and then discovered that many would - and did.

What's on your mind that you'd like to express? Even if nobody's listening? Go for it, someone might.