Stream: patient empowerment
Topic: self-diagnosing
David Hay (Jul 27 2019 at 18:22):
Another example of 'curing' yourself: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/27/health/doug-lindsay-invented-surgery-trnd/index.html
Dave deBronkart (Jul 28 2019 at 05:15):
I will humbly say that Doug (whom I know fairly well) did FAR more than self diagnosis.:-). He is a classic specimen of the "superpatient" archetype I described in my Amsterdam talk - "patients who EXTEND SCIENCE when all other options are gone."
As an activist for social change I'm keenly attuned to the current dominant beliefs that hold back change, particularly holding back an expanded role for patients in all aspects of medicine. One of those key beliefs is "medical science is hard, so what could a patient without that training possibly contribute??"
Stories like Doug's are a thunderclap-level answer to that question! And once that's recognised as reality, holding back data becomes indefensible.
Last updated: Apr 12 2022 at 19:14 UTC
