Entries by Marie Ennis-O'Connor

The Benefits and Pitfalls of Blogging About Your Illness

In his book, The Wounded Storyteller, Arthur Frank, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Calgary, writes that when we are ill we are wounded not just in body, […]

Seven Steps to a Successful Digital Advocacy Strategy

Digital advocacy concerns the ways in which you engage your audience online and inspire them to take action around your cause. Using digital tools and applications can amplify your issue, […]

How to Read Beyond the Headline: 9 Essential Questions to Evaluate Medical News

Ben Goldacre writing in Bad Science classified science reporting as falling into three categories – wacky stories, scare stories and breakthrough stories; the last of which he views as ”a […]

A Person Centered Approach To The Care Of Chronic Illness

The World Health Organization has called chronic conditions ‘the health care challenge of this century’. According to the latest figures released by the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention about […]

Why Your Patient Story Matters

“Tell me a fact and I’ll learn. Tell me a truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.” North American Indian […]

Shared Decision Making: Putting the Patient At The Center of Medical Care

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn” – Benjamin Franklin As gravity shifts away from health care providers as the sole keeper […]

Virtual Patient Communities

Virtual Patient Communities Engendering A New Social Health Era Howard Rheingold, who coined the phrase virtual communities, describes them as “cultural aggregations that emerge when enough people bump into each […]

Six Lessons Learned From Breast Cancer

“The period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period in one’s life.”  — Dalai Lama Writing in Oncology Times, radiation oncologist, Matthew Katz MD, described […]