The Web-Savvy Patient: An Insider’s Guide to Navigating the Internet When Facing Medical Crisis

Gone are the days when patients take life-changing diagnoses lying down. The first place people go to learn more about their health, especially when it is at risk, is the Internet. But this unregulated channel can be as harmful as it is beneficial when it comes to medical content. As a step-by-step guide, The Web-Savvy Patient: An Insider's Guide to Navigating the Internet When Facing Medical Crisis explores topics such as wading through search engine results, connecting with online communities, defining conditions, identifying the specialists, and organizing the outcome of your research so that doctors will listen. Delivering practical instruction and supplying real-life reassurances, author and recognized patient empowerment pioneer Andrew Schorr encourages individuals and family members to retain control rather than fall victim to fear and worry. Schorr offers up true stories of empowered patients alongside the details of his own experience as a cancer patient, revealing how the Internet led him toward the physician, hospital, and treatment that he believes saved his life. Enlightening and logically organized, the book is easy to read and easy to relate to. Respected medical experts, support groups, and patients agree that when it comes to improving the quality of online health content, Schorr, a longtime patient educator, medical journalist, and leukemia survivor, is the ultimate expert.

Andrew Schorr is a veteran medical journalist, television reporter/producer, and pioneer in online health communications. He launched his career in television news in Charlotte, NC, later becoming a national producer of PM Magazine and receiving a top award from the American Medical Writers Association. Schorr established radio-style talk shows and town hall meetings for patients with chronic illnesses, first through HealthTalk.com and currently via PatientPower.info. In 2010, he founded the Patient Empowerment Network with his wife, Esther, with whom he has three children. He lives near Seattle. Mary Adam Thomas is a writer who has been involved in health care communications for over 20 years. Her portfolio includes patient education resources, promotional material, and editorial articles for clinical and consumer audiences. She is also the collaborative author of Zugunruhe: The Inner Migration to Profound Environmental Change. She lives near Seattle with her husband and two children.