Month: May 2013

The wisdom of patients

judy3_on-300x200Last week was the third anniversary of the death of my lifelong friend, Judy Feder. In 2001, Judy was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer at the age of 45.

I was involved in a health internet start-up at the time and knew about Gilles Frydman’s pioneering work in creating a collection of online patient communities called the Association of Cancer Online Resources (ACOR). Judy joined the group for patients with metastatic breast cancer. She embraced online communications (perhaps at least in part because she was a public relations professional) and participated in a second breast cancer online community called BC Mets as well. You can read about her 8-year breast cancer journey in this article in the Journal of Participatory Medicine, the journal of the Society for Participatory Medicine of which she was a founding member.

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