I have lost both my mother and father to multiple forms of cancer. It was always there, all the time, allways just around the corner. Whenever there was good news, not long after than there was bad news. My parents underwent their diseases, it kind of just happened to them, they did what was needed. Did basically what the “docs” told them to and, had really no idea of what other options were available; if any.
Looking back : stunning !
One of the great gifts I have received in my life, was meeting Maarten Lens-FitzGerald (@dutchcowboy on twitter). Maarten is a young internet entrepreneur, so he knows about the internet and its possibilities. Maarten got cancer too.
Almost right after been diagnosed he started to talk about it through social media like twitter ad made a blog : MaartensJourney.com “To share, to inform and hopefully to help a little”. Social media and the internet was his lifeline before, during and after chemotherapy, diagnostics etc. To talk, to ask, to find information and to get cheered up on though moments.
Through twitter we “met”. At first online, later off-line too. Discussing how this way of handling his disease, maybe could improve healthcare, by telling his story. Not only online but also offline. How it could help my ambition to change healthcare bit by bit into a more patient-orientated healthcare. Something Maarten would liked to encourage.
For me the roadmap Maarten had taken illustrated the empowerment patients could face, once presented with accurate information in a understandable way, on a 24/7 basis, supported by social media..
We discussed the option of Maarten coming to Nijmegen and tell his story to my colleagues (at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre) and others working in Healthcare. Since in my opinion many healthcare workers are not aware of these kind of changes , especially the aspect triggered by the internet.
So, at my first Health 2.0 conference March 2009, Maarten Keynoted (in Dutch) . But this time not –as he often does about his projects or business- but about his Cancer and the things he had encountered. See the interview that @berci made at the speakersdiner)
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