You found me! Here I am!
And I’m moving back in, here to my personal blog. Home. Where I started writing about Patient Empowerment in 2005.
It’s been awhile since I’ve been “home.” Look around! You can see how dusty it is. I’ve got to wash the curtains and get them back up. Clearly the place needs to be swept and vacuumed. Those are all tasks I’ll get squared away in the next few days. Give me a week and I may even get some new paint on the walls.
Are you wondering why I’ve moved back home?
Simple answer – it’s because I was sent packing.
Most of my regulars know about my work at About.com Patient Empowerment. I started writing for About.com in late 2007 and in all, I published more than 800 articles on topics from how to be an empowered patient, to how to get your medical records, to how to look up CPT codes, to how to deal with an arrogant doctors and much, much more. In addition to those 800 articles, I wrote more than 1000 blog posts! And I would still be writing and publishing there today… except that….
I was terminated June 30. Gone. Kaput. Right in the middle of my contract year. They decided they didn’t want me anymore and cut me off. Chop chop.
If you want details, here they are. But that’s not the point of this post.
This post is to tell you that I’m going to lead by example. That is – throughout my patient empowerment work, the advice I always give to you is to stick up for yourself and to be sure to take responsibility for the situation you’ve been dealt. Don’t take crap from anyone. YOU are the most important stakeholder in your own care and to get what you need, you need to take the lead.
So that’s exactly what I’m doing here. As much as I loved my work with About.com, it’s no longer an option. So I’m moving back home, gonna spiff up the place, and will begin publishing again right here to keep my commitment to helping you, my readers, get what you need from the healthcare system.
Here are some of my plans:
- I’ll be writing articles just like I was writing them before – so – what topics would you like to see?
- One of the recent changes About.com had made was to take away YOUR opportunity to comment on articles and blog posts. By publishing here, I’ll be restoring that capability. So please do comment! I learn from you every time.
Together we’ll weather the healthcare system together, whether About.com wants to help in that effort or not. I’m still Every Patient’s Advocate. They can’t take that away from me. And I’m here for you.
Are you with me? Great!
(Now could one of you big strong guys help me move my desk over there – under the window? It’s a beautiful day, and I don’t want to miss the sunshine.)
I’ll be back soon with some usable healthcare information. All suggestions welcome 🙂
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*about.com will likely continue to send patient empowerment newsletters, and for the foreseeable future, they will be my articles. But there will be nothing new that hasn’t been sent out in a newsletter previously. Feel free to unsubscribe if it gets to be redundant.
thanks for all you have done to inform patients. will hopefully get to follow you here on your Blog.
You are going to see something GREAT is going to come out of this latest ABOUT(face).com maneuver…will look forward to seeing what that is !
ruth
So sorry about your recent thrashing.
Just now I have a whole bunch of comments that come to mind
but all I want to say is that I want to be on your team and
to continue hearing from you.
Life should not be about taking drugs for symptom relief, but that is where we seem to be in our culture.
Nonsense; and a lot of us know it.
I definitely want to stay on your mailing list.
Blessings on your being able to use your passion, experience and expertise to continue to make a living being “every patient’s advocate.”.
I heard a rumor a while back that About.com and Answers.com had merged in some way, and the way About.com is treating their experts is exactly what happened to Answers.com experts (a program they had only recently started) just a few months ago, which makes me wonder if that rumor was true.
Julie – not exactly – the rumor isn’t true, although I can see how it would get started. The New York Times sold About.com in August 2012 to IAC Corporation which owns Ask.com, Urbanspoon, Match.com, Vimeo, the Daily Beast – and a slew of other online properties. They do not, however, own Answers.com. But relating to your point, Answers.com did attempt to purchase About.com before the NYT sold it off to IAC.
Hi Tricia, yeah I did some digging after I commented here and found the same info you posted. I guess it was Answers.com’s attempt to buy About.com that started that rumor. Sad to see that even though they did not purchase it that they both seem to be approaching their writers the same way.