When an illness narrative isn’t just about illness

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters 

The ink was barely dry on the book contract I’d signed with Johns Hopkins University Press on the morning I tuned in, as I like to do every weekend, to Michael Enright’s Sunday Edition show on CBC Radio.

Michael’s guest that morning couldn’t have been more appropriate, given the project I was just beginning. A physician-turned-author named Dr. Suzanne Koven was talking about people who write first-person accounts of their health crises, books that Michael indelicately referred to as “sick lit“.(1)  . Illness, Michael began, is always more interesting to the ill person than to the reader. But Dr. Koven quickly interjected.  Continue reading “When an illness narrative isn’t just about illness” →

Patient bloggers at healthcare conferences: ‘real’ journalists?

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:
Screen Shot 2015-02-14 at 7.54.00 AM
To which patient advocate, speaker (and also a Stanford University Medicine X e-Patient Scholar Carly Medosch who blogs at Chronic Carly) responded:
 
Screen Shot 2015-02-14 at 6.45.09 PM
 
It was Carly’s observation that caused one of my eyebrows to flick skyward, unbidden.

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