My medical awakening came as I lay in the ICU, tethered to a multiplicity of machines and monitors working in concert to keep me alive. Tears streaming down my face as I played back the surgeon’s words, “I don’t know if you will make it through the surgery, it doesn’t look good. If I have to…

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On May 27, 2009, I was invited to present a patient/caregiver view of hospitalization at a small health 2.0 meeting in Washington, DC. I saw PowerPoint presentations with bar charts and graphs. I sat patiently taking notes about the state of “e-health” and social media. At around 3:15 p.m., I spoke. I described the horror…

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I knew right away that the skiing accident was bad: I broke my hip at age 35. It took more than 24 hours to get home, with painkillers, a bucket for nausea and x-rays in an envelope. It wasn’t until I talked with my health insurer that I cried. And got angry. The insurer told…

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In May of 2013, our otherwise healthy 26-year-old daughter Jess (she’d recently hiked 2,200 miles on the Appalachian Trail) started feeling some tingling and numbness in her hands and feet. Within three days she had trouble walking, and was in terrible pain. The diagnosis was Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), a rare, paralyzing nerve disorder. Doctors told…

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Helen Haskell, President, Mothers Against Medical Error Patient Safety Awareness Week is an annual education and awareness campaign for health care safety led by National Patient Safety Foundation. The theme for 2015 is United in Safety — that is, we are all united in the goal of keeping patients and those who care for them…

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We all expect our doctors to know the latest and, when we’re in big trouble, to vigorously pursue the best and latest treatments for us. Right? That’s what I expected when I discovered in 2007 that I was nearly dead from kidney cancer, and I did in fact get the best. I’m grateful, and I’m…

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