Shannon MacLaughlan: Why Is It Important for You to Empower Patients?
Why is it important to empower patients? Expert Dr. Shannon MacLaughlan from University of Illinois discusses her approach to patient care, advocacy, and empowering them in their cancer care.
Related Resources:
Transcript:
Shannon MacLaughlan:
I empower patients, hopefully by listening to them. I spend more of my time listening to them and learning about them than I do telling them what to do. I spend a lot of time getting to know who in their life is important in helping them make decisions and helping them lay out their goals for care and for life. I think that’s the most important thing I can do to empower someone during their treatment journey. I will often try to empower and elevate the voices of my patients even further by having them participate in the work that I do in a variety of different ways.
I have patient advocates who participate in study design. I have survivors from my practice who have made public appearances with me. We’ve done radio shows together during cervical cancer awareness month. We have involved them in higher level advocacy work. As an example, I sit on the Illinois Special Commission for Gynecologic Cancers and the chair of our Research and Policy Subcommittee.
And my co-chair on that subcommittee is a survivor herself who I’ve known since the day she was diagnosed and she went on to finish a master’s in public health and is in nurse practitioner school now. She and I work together in identifying the best ways to provide some justice and equity in cervical cancer care and outcomes. So I try to empower everyone during their cancer journey, but I also try to elevate voices with my own platforms.