August 2010 Man of the Month: E-Patient Dave

Richard Davies deBronkart Jr , known by many as e-Patient Dave, is a cancer patient and blogger who, in 2009, became a noted activist for health care transformation through participatory medicine and personal health data rights. In 2010, he became a published author and Disruptive Women in Health Care’s August Man of the Month. I was a middle-aged guy going through life, as involved with my own health care as I was with my car’s carburetor, which is to say, virtually not at all. And then I found out I was almost dead. That’s how my interview with Dave started. Dave was diagnosed in January 2007 with Stage IV, Grade 4 renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer) at a very late stage. His median survival time at diagnosis was just 24 weeks; with tumors in his lungs, bones, and muscle tissue, his prognosis was dire. Now, almost four years later, e-Patient Dave has emerged as a patient advocate, with a self-described calling to connect, engage, and empower patients. Dave had been proactive for years when it came to choosing providers he liked, so when it came to crunch time, he was fortunate on several levels: he received excellent treatment at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; his physician, Dr. Danny Sands, who in addition to serving as Dave’s primary care doc since 2003, also serves as the Senior Medical Informatics Director at Cisco and as such is on the bleeding edge of online communications and health information technology; and, the Biologic Therapy program ...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs