-
With Enormous Thanks to Modern Medicine
Baby Zoe – A Christmas Miracle This Christmas Day, baby Zoe arrived early into the world, a 3 pound, 4 ounce bundle of love. She’ll need heart surgery as soon as she’s strong enough. Thankfully she’s in Boston at one of the world’s best children’s hospitals, and has loving parents and their extended families surrounding…
-
Why You Need a Passport in the Emergency Room
By Pat Mastors, PVI President and Co-Founder Last week, I found myself heading to the hospital emergency room to meet up with my 83-year-old mother. She was being rushed there by ambulance after complaining of intense leg pain and heart palpitations. Within a reasonable time she was settled, stable and pain-free, with immediate danger seemingly…
-
Winner Announced – and More! 2015 Patient Voice Impact Award
PVI is extremely grateful to the patients and families who shared their stories to be considered for the 2015 Patient Voice Impact Award! Below is the official news release with details of who won. In later posts we’ll share the judges’ thinking, what PVI learned through this process, and what’s ahead for 2016. (From the left)…
-
Timoria’s Story: Overcoming the Mental and Physical Trauma of Childbirth
Childbirth can be a harrowing experience for a mother, but the trauma is usually quickly soothed away as soon as her new-born baby is in her arms. For Timoria McQueen, however, it was a different story; the birth of her daughter was the beginning of a life-threatening experience that would scar her mentally and physically. Now,…
-
Patient Voices: Ground-Breaking Work
An important body of work released last week, surveying nearly 700 injured patients and families, paints a sad picture of “diagnostic and therapeutic errors, surgical or procedural complications, hospital-associated infections and medication errors” that led to “death, post-traumatic stress, financial hardship and permanent disability”. The report, published in the prestigious British Medical Journal of Quality…
-
The Wisdom of Jessie Gruman
Jessie Christine Gruman 1953-2014 Like many of you, we here at the Patient Voice Institute were so sad to learn of the loss of Jessie Gruman. Jessie, Founder of the Center for Advancing Health, died yesterday at home in New York. She’d long been sick, but somehow (probably because of her huge spirit) her death…
