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A researcher’s point of view

Today I found a guest blog entry on the Scientific American website. It was yet another one of those cases where I was trying to find one thing, and bumped into something else along the way. What a great thing to bump into!

Many of us as patients become like evangelists with religion trying to tell our stories – especially those of us with rare disorders. We want someone to understand, to respond, to “get it.”


One of the things I love about the American Thoracic Society meeting is how hard they work to include a patient speaker into the various scientific sessions presented at the conference. Not many scientific groups do that. Even if it’s a quick five minutes, we as patients hope that we’re able to offer a little tidbit that sticks in someone’s brain and comes out when they need the inspiration the most.


It sounds like that’s what happened to this researcher. Her blog is about attending a presentation on pulmonary fibrosis at John Hopkins. The patient speaker made an impression on her.


As someone who has been that patient speaker several times before, it’s so great to read about impressions from the other side of the stage. What do you know? It works!


If you’d like to read the blog entry I found, go to: http://www.scientificamerican.com/page.cfm?section=register_sbmt










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