Category: Heart Sisters

– posts here focus on general topics about women and heart disease

My guest column in Stanford School of Medicine’s ‘Scope’

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

John Novack is the Director of Communications at Inspire – the organization that hosts WomenHeart’s online support community of almost 18,000 members living with heart disease. Three years ago, John approached Michelle Brandt. She’s the Director of Digital and Broadcast Media at Stanford University School of Medicine, and also the editor of the school’s medical blog called Scope. John’s suggestion to Michelle: let him help her work what he called “the voices of actual, unvarnished patients” into her publication – normally devoted to coverage of scientific and medical developments around the world. Michelle said yes.

And that’s how Scope’s monthly patient-focused series of unique personal stories was launched. Since I qualified as a contributor (an actual, unvarnished patient myself), John invited me to submit something for consideration – “I’d love a draft column by the end of March!” is how he put it. Continue reading “My guest column in Stanford School of Medicine’s ‘Scope’” →

Patient bloggers at healthcare conferences: ‘real’ journalists?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 9 Comments
Like some of my most deliciously niggling inspirations these days, this one started on Twitter. Arthritis patient advocate, speaker and a Stanford University Medicine X e-Patient Scholar Britt Johnson tweeted this:
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To which patient advocate, speaker (and also a Stanford University Medicine X e-Patient Scholar Carly Medosch who blogs at Chronic Carly) responded:
 
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It was Carly’s observation that caused one of my eyebrows to flick skyward, unbidden.

Continue reading “Patient bloggers at healthcare conferences: ‘real’ journalists?” →

“It’s no hobby. It is a vital service.”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 3 Comments

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by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

Hobby: häbē/ noun. an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure. “Her hobbies are reading, knitting and gardening”

I’m guessing that those of us who have ‘graduated’ from the WomenHeart Science and Leadership Symposium For Women With Heart Disease (a training program held each fall at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota) rarely consider our volunteer contributions as a “hobby” in the birdwatching/jewelry-making/focaccia-baking sense of that word.

We already know that our Mayo training gives us ‘street cred’.  The days we spent experiencing world-class “cardiology bootcamp” in Rochester opened doors that allow us to share what we’ve learned as community educators, media spokespersons or heart patient support group leaders. So far, over 600 WomenHeart ‘champions’ in the U.S. (and two of us here in Canada) have been trained to be “the boots on the ground” in the fight against women’s heart disease – our #1 killer. According to WomenHeart, 45% of the women who graduate from this annual training at Mayo have been credited with saving someone’s life.

But sometimes, we are smacked upside the head by those who simply have no clue about the difference between a volunteer and a hobbyist. Take, for example, this story from my heart sister, Leslea Steffel-Dennis.  Continue reading ““It’s no hobby. It is a vital service.”” →

A year in review: Top 10 Heart Sisters posts in 2014

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 10 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

2014It’s that time again, when navel-gazing pundits everywhere compile their Best Of or Top 10 lists of movies, political stories, books or bloopers for the year that’s just about to slip away. Same here at Heart Sisters.  So let’s take a nostalgic look backwards today at 2014, at what I like to describe as “cardiac rehab for my brain”. This blog was viewed about 900,000 times in 2014. My WordPress helper monkeys behind the scenes tell me that if this were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 39 days for that many people to see it!  Grand total of Heart Sisters views is over 2 million from readers in 190 countries since I launched this site back in 2009.   Continue reading “A year in review: Top 10 Heart Sisters posts in 2014” →