This One's For You Guys
On change and progress
Hey all. I’m here to announce I’m changing this publication a touch. I want it to be about the audience—you guys. I want to change focus: I’ll keep my personal essays in an archive and have three sections on my homepage: For Me, For You Guys, and (Kinda) Book Reviews.
My profile pic and bio will change as well.
My new bio: In his late-forties, a once-epileptic, ex-healthcare hero, and once-divorced (now remarried) father of four.
As far as my pic, I had to make a choice—I wanted an image of me looking like a dull-witted moron. It wasn’t too hard. (The one on the top right was an accident.)
I chose; tell me if it’s the correct option.
My bio wouldn’t be considered a patient-focused bio. It’s ironic, though; I can laugh at myself.
A patient-focused description would look something like this: A loving father of four, married to a wife he adores. He works in healthcare, and his epilepsy is under control. (I eliminated my age because age is just a number.)
The patient commands the sentence.
From an article by Barbara Starfield:
“Care is better when it recognizes what patients' problems are rather than what the diagnosis is. The challenge is to do better at recognizing and documenting their problems. Assessing quality of problem recognition requires documenting the problems and how they change in response to what clinicians do.”1
After working in healthcare for over 10 years, I’ve learned how little respect the patient receives from some healthcare workers. I want to focus on the patient and tell their story. I don’t want to minimize the hospital and everything they do; I simply don’t want them in the picture. I want to write about you.
That being said, I would love to hear your story. Are you affected by an illness or condition? Have you lost a loved one or come close to it? Have you lost sleep, couldn’t eat, and could not pull yourself out of bed? What about your mental health? Have you mourned? Rejoiced? Wept?
I would also love to hear from the caregivers—the parents, the nurses, and the doctors who have shown honest empathy to their patients.
Please get in touch with me or leave a comment. I want to publish your story and express what you’ve seen and where you’ve been.
Much love and respect.
Perm J. 2011 Spring; 15(2): 63–69. Published online Spring 2011. doi: 10.7812/tpp/10-148