“If you want to understand a symptom, a disease, a diagnosis, start by understanding the patient."
Today, I'm proud to to share with you a free e-book called Experts by Experience: Patient Stories That Teach.
The Experts by Experience series on the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network is a collaboration between health care social networks Mayo Clinic Connect and Inspire. The stories written by patients and caregivers underscore the need for health communication and medical professionals to pay attention to the human experience — a patient’s journey, a caregiver’s perspective, a communicator’s knowledge — and to turn knowledge into action.
In the e-book, Experts by Experience: Patient Stories That Teach, you will read stories about tribulations and triumphs with illness, about personal journeys and lessons learned, about feelings of isolation, frustration and how these challenges led to empowerment for some...and, if you read between the lines, you will notice how these stories can ignite conversations and inspire shared decision-making between patients and their health providers.
Special thanks to Connect members who contributed their stories to the 2018 collection:
This compilation is described as “stories that teach” because patients and caregivers are educators in so many ways — they teach us to find meaning in the loss of health, and to explore the potential of healing medicine that is grounded in personal experience.
Download the free e-book Experts by Experience 2019: Stories that Teach (PDF)
For every author in the e-book, we also created a quotable graphic for them to share on social media. I think they are beautiful and would like to share a few of them here:
@colleenyoung they work really well for posting too! Well done and Cheers to all the team!
These graphics with the photos accompanied by the quotes are very powerful, @colleenyoung. Wonderful.
@colleenyoung - I didn't mean to drop everything and read the whole thing, but that is exactly what I did. I could not put it down. It was so inspirational. Kudos to all involved for an amazing product.
These collected stories--true and heartfelt--are wonderful. Thank you for making them available to us. They are a treasure and I willl read and reread them. Fantastic graphics and great writing. Thank you!