Stanford Medicine X ended on Sunday after three (very) full days. Larry Chu deserves much of the credit for what I like about Medicine X, an “academic conference designed for everyone.”
E-patients made up 10% of the audience and I appreciated their participation on stage, at the microphones, and on Twitter. There were also clinicians, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and artists to name just a few of the other groups represented.
I will be writing more about the conference and what I learned over the next few days, but I wanted to share two images:
- Larry appeared on stage on Day 3 in the same shirt worn by the volunteers, in their honor. Larry is the most thoughtful and generous person I know. He not only sends beautiful thank-you notes, but in this case, he was essentially wearing one.
- Two e-patients supporting a third as she made her way to the stage for the IDEO Challenge Presentation, then, at the end of their panel, supporting her as she carefully walked down the stairs. Everyone was quiet as we watched this caregiving scene. There was no rush, no music, no announcements to hurry her off.
After 3 days together, I felt bonded to the group, the Medicine X tribe, and this was one of our number who needed assistance. I think any one of us would have done the same. Lend a hand, lend an ear, lend advice (to echo my closing keynote from last year).
I have only had that feeling at a few other events – and they’re mostly personal or religious events, not work-related conferences. I’d love to hear other memories of Medicine X and discuss how we can infuse our daily lives with the thoughtfulness, respect, and innovation present at Stanford last weekend.
Beautifully said, Susannah. Since returning home to Victoria, my family and friends have all asked the same question: “So? How was it?” – which I’ve decided is an almost impossible-to-answer question without more time to digest and parse each day, each session, each meaningful encounter with the person who happens to be sitting next to you on the shuttle bus.
I’m so glad you chose those two moving illustrations of this profound MedX experience! My own is a much smaller example: seeing a photo on Twitter Friday night taken in that day’s “VIP Dining Room” – and then realizing on the following day that “VIP” at this conference meant patients! On Saturday, I was standing in the long lineup for the lunch buffet when one of those red-shirted volunteers grabbed an elbow and said: “Follow me!” – steering me into that very same VIP dining room filled with other ePatient scholars.
In my world (public relations), VIP means only one thing at events: corporate sponsors. At MedX, I think every one of us felt like a VIP.
Lovely finally meeting you in person.
Yes! That’s it! That’s a perfect description of how it felt to live for 3 days in Larry’s world: everyone’s a VIP. And on a personal note, it was so nice to meet you and sit next to you, picking up our conversation where we left off as if (because) we were old friends (thanks to social media).
Roheet Kakaday has also written about how he felt at the end of the conference — his first two posts are definitely worth a read too:
http://thebiopsy.wordpress.com/2012/10/01/stanford-medicine-x-closing-thoughts/
I’m looking forward to reliving some of the talks, generously archived and immediately available on the MedX site:
http://medicinex.stanford.edu/videostalks/
The conference blog is another place to either capture or recapture some of the magic:
http://medicinex.stanford.edu/blog/
I think you nailed it, Susannah. You and I attend a lot of conferences and can pretty readily distinguish between those that inform and those that inspire. MedX did both. Over those 3 days I felt as though I was tapping not just the wisdom of the crowd, but the spirit and passion as well.
I should add that it was enormously rewarding to play a small part in helping to bring epatients into the fold through the ePatient Scholarship program — a huge leap forward in how we move discussions about patient-centered design and care to center stage, literally and figuratively.
The fact that so many of us in the MedX “tribe” had seemingly so little interest in parting ways is a tribute to Larry and his team. I look forward to reading more of your post-conference observations and, as always, tapping into your wisdom and insights.
Thanks, David!
If anyone wants to learn more about how MedX was able to include patient voices at the event, check out:
Alliance Health ePatient Scholarship Program
http://medicinex.stanford.edu/epatient-scholarship-program/
ePatient Advisory Panel
http://medicinex.stanford.edu/2011/10/31/announcing-our-medicine-x-epatient-advisory-panel-for-2011-12/
The first event I attended with significant representation of patients and caregivers was in 2008, the California HealthCare Foundation’s Chronic Disease Care conference. I wrote about it in this post:
http://e-patients.net/archives/2008/12/patient-voices-at-chcfs-chronic-disease-care-conference.html
Check out Caron Lee’s comments on the post – she provides nuts and bolts detail about how they recruited people.
Hi Mrs. Fox,
“I have only had that feeling at a few other events – and they’re mostly personal or religious events, not work-related conferences.”
I think that quote is very apt considering all the thought put into Med X’s execution as well as the quality and passion of all the attendees. We’d be hard pressed to find a similar atmosphere anywhere else.
I like Mr. Goldsmith’s analogy to a Med X “tribe” because that seems the perfect way to describe our similar visions (and by “our” I mean, once again, all of the attendees).
The funny thing is that Med X was the first medical conference I ever attended, and, as such, has raised the bar very high. So much so, that I am actually somewhat worried that all other conferences I go to will just be “ho-hum”.
It’s unfortunate that we didn’t get a chance to meet during the conference! I guess that’s what the next Med X is for, right? Nonetheless, thank you for the link to my blog post. I very much appreciate it. Take care and keep doing what you do.
Best wishes,
Roheet
Woosh, good luck with that — you may, indeed, be ruined for life when it comes to medical conferences!
But then again, maybe we should ask Ronan Kavanagh to weigh in — check out his post about his specialty’s meeting:
http://www.ronankavanagh.ie/blog/the-tyranny-of-choice/
It may not end in hugs, but maybe building a tribe of like-minded folks doesn’t have to have the same flavor as MedX.
And please, call me Susannah.
So, my only bearable reaction to reading this – knowing how wonderful it was, and that I was elsewhere – my own bearable reaction is: At last, we are many; we are fanning out.
And thank you for sharing the experience. Beautifully expressed. I won’t want to miss this one next year.
Thank you Susannah! This experience was truly validating for patients. Medicine X was a place where any change seems feasible, where the audience truly believes the patients, and where it feels ok to brainstorm creative, even ‘outlandish’ solutions to our own personal medical problems.
I wanted to share my own anecdote. I met a woman in the hallway who happened to (at one point) have been on prednisone for 13 years. I have now been on prednisone for 15 years. She shared her experience with getting off of the drug, a process that took many years and close collaboration with an endocrinologist. As a result of this short hallway conversation, I have set up an appointment with an endocrinologist and am developing a plan to get off this damaging drug.
Sometimes it just takes another person to look you in the eye and tell you they believe you, and they believe IN you, to help you make the impossible possible.
This is just one example of the many inspiring casual interactions I had at medicine X. It was really a transformational experience, and I look forward to seeing the great things (products, collaborations, relationships) that come out of it.
Many of us who where there had the distinct feeling that we were at the birth of a new tribe and culture and are seeing the movement from individual to us to shared values.
In many ways it reminded me of the work that David Logan has down on Tribal Leadership – Societies are built by naturally occurring groups of people or tribes but what sets some of them apart is their culture and their connections.
Some tribes are formed by being alienated (life sucks) or being against something (my life sucks) others are based on individual demands; (I am great and your not) and others collaborate (we’re great) but are still often in solos – patients, providers, researchers, entrepreneurs.
Only a few are come together by not only extending the reach of the tribe but search out shared values (life is great) and you start to create a new culture. By including each level from individual through team to a community of shared values and you can see things through the “others” eyes you are able to solve the wicked hard problems in society.
Larry and his team seemed to know that by embedding individual patient stories into the conference we would find a way to develop an open source community with a set of shared values. We often hear people say that “everyone is a patient” and I have advocated for “patients are providers too” but this conference helped me understand that they patients are also researchers and entrepreneurs as well.
But perhaps most important than the individual roles we play is recognizing that we are also the community midwives assisting at the birth of a new culture and community of innovation, caring, healing.
Thanks so much for the comments so far!
Dave, you & I know that these special moments can happen anywhere, under many circumstances. Two of the other conferences that have created the same feeling were a HealthCamp and Health Foo (one open, the other not).
Katie & Sherry, I love what you each wrote (as well as what you said at the event). Larry got the formula right last year when he curated Med2.0, refined it for this year at MedX — what will he and his band of merry medical marauders come up with for 2013???
For anyone who missed the event, check out this excellent Storify of one guy’s experience there:
http://storify.com/iamspartacus/my-medicine-x-experience
(he is @iam_spartacus on Twitter)
Susannah, what a powerful post to capture the spirit of the event. Thank you for sharing this.
Every time I reflect on Medicine X I choke up a bit —sometimes out of joy about what could be and sometimes because of memories like the second anecdote you shared. It was a really special thing to witness.
Very well said, all. It really did feel like a gathering of the tribe and a collective realization that we ARE in the together and we CAN make it better together.
Loved your post. We all want conferences to be about connection, learning & inspiration. Why is it they so seldom deliver?
Claudia, I’ve been thinking about this question since you first tweeted and now, since you posted it here.
Personally, when I’m making a decision about whether to accept an invitation to an event, I consider:
1) Organizer — is it an individual or an organization? Do I know them? Do they include patients and caregivers in their plans, such as on their program committee? Do I like them — ie, would they pass the “have a beer w them” test? I consider the personality of the event to be a reflection of the host(s). It is my #1 consideration since everything follows from whether I trust the organizer(s).
2) Topic/focus — will I learn something new? Is it important, ie, does it matter? Will I be contributing to something that will move the field forward in an interesting way?
3) Audience — who else will be there? Is it a new group of people? Is it going to be a chance to reconnect with people I already know? Is there a plan for including patients and caregivers, such as travel stipends and scholarships? How many people will attend — small, medium, large, mega?
4) Location (city) — will I need to travel? How many days will I miss at the office, away from my research? How many nights will I miss, away from my family?
5) Location (venue) — architecture matters. What’s the main hall like? How about the break-out rooms? Are people staying “on campus” or will we be spread out across a city?
If I had time, and maybe I’ll make time, I’d create a grid that lists all the conferences I’ve attended in the last 4 years down one side and these criteria across the top. Very few events would receive top marks in all of them (honestly, I’m not sure any of them would), but here are the ones which receive top marks in 4 out of 5:
Stanford Medicine X – Larry Chu – large (300)
Health Foo – O’Reilly + RWJF – small (75)
Stanford Mobile Health – BJ Fogg – medium (150)
Health 2.0 Paris – Denise Silber, Matthew Holt, Indu Subaiya – large
TEDMED San Diego – RWJF Pioneer Group – medium (within a large meeting)
HealthCampDC – Mark Scrimshire and the gang – tiny
Mayo Transform 2010 – David Rosenman – large
Note that none of my favorites were “mega” — that’s just my personal wish. I did not like TEDMED at the Kennedy Center, for example, nor do I list any of the events held at convention centers.
There are many more which meet 3/5 of my personal criteria and were certainly worth the time I invested in the travel, presentation, etc. But few attained that magical quality I felt at MedX.
What criteria would you add to the list? What is your favorite city or venue? What is your ideal size for a meeting?
Note: I elevated this comment to a post and it generated another great conversation thread.
How I choose which conferences to attend
Need for actionable/measurable results (eg: policy discussion)?
Wow, I can’t believe I missed this comment when it was posted last fall.
I’m personally of two minds when it comes to conference outcomes — sometimes it makes sense for it to be like a revival, a place for inspiration and connection; other times it makes sense for it to be a place for strategy, tactics, and action. So far Medicine X is closer to the former, but I did get the sense that there were patients, clinicians, and entrepreneurs making decisions about what to do next as a result of the meeting. That’s a different kind of policy, a different kind of result.
> sometimes it makes sense for it to be like a revival,
> a place for inspiration and connection; other times it makes
> sense for it to be a place for strategy, tactics, and action.
There’s another dimension, which you (SFox) taught me years ago on e-patients.net: when you’re changing culture, sometimes the biggest impact is not measured by the noise level (or number of pageviews) – the real impact can come from a quiet but important shift in people’s view. If an event (or blog) changes how people think about things – especially if it’s well-positioned people – then the natural course of events from then on alters.
I suspect that’s the underlying mechanism for what alters when patients are truly the focus. Everyone starts to think differently, even if there’s no immediate bing-bang-boom.
Update: Stanford Medicine X has announced a call for speakers for the 2013 conference. The event will be held in Palo Alto, CA, September 27-29, 2013. Submissions will be accepted from February 1, 2013 to March 15, 2013.
Thanks Susannah,
I just emailed you through pewinternet.org about our health tracking research project. I hope you get it.
Steve