Careful writing is important for many reasons, not least that intelligent but hurried reporters will trust the presser, resulting in a cascade of secondary damage. Dave deBronkart Read Quote
As I’ve met clinicians in my travels, time after time I’ve been inspired to hear why people went into medicine: to apply their way-above-average minds (and hearts) to work that’s beyond most people’s capacity, and perhaps save a few lives. Dave deBronkart Read Quote
I’m an e-patient: equipped, enabled, empowered, engaged. I’m no clinician, but I do everything in my power to help them, to play an active role in my own care, and even in the design of care. Dave deBronkart Read Quote
I advocate for a totally new view of the role of the patient: patient as engaged partner, not passive recipient. Dave deBronkart Read Quote
In other industries, value is defined by the ultimate stakeholder – the one who benefits, or not, from the service. We should do the same in medicine. Dave deBronkart Read Quote
The baby boomer surge is forcing society to face decisions about costs – and particularly what is valuable. It’s senseless for clinicians and governments to bear these choices alone; a sad effect of needless paternalism is that it places a false burden on responsible people. Dave deBronkart Read Quote
Diagnosed incidentally with stage IV, grade 4 metastatic renal cell carcinoma, I had bone metastases in my femur (which eventually fractured), ulna, and cranium; five metastases in my lungs; and muscle metastases in my thigh and tongue. Yet six months after diagnosis, my treatment ended: I’ve not had a drop of anything since. Dave deBronkart Read Quote
One of the most stubborn barriers to patient empowerment is the cultural assumption that since the way professionals learned was hard, you must need to be really smart, and you need to be taught in a carefully thought out, methodical sequence. Dave deBronkart Read Quote
Value in medicine depends on information – as I said in ‘Let Patients Help,’ ‘People perform better when they’re informed better.’ It follows that to make patients and families more effective in care, they need to know more. Dave deBronkart Read Quote
