Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, the Web 2.o, and Blogging Health Justice

That's the title of a talk i'm giving at the National Physicians' Alliance conference this weekend in Chicago, which is happening back to back with the American Medical Student Association conference -- so yes, i get to go to both. sweet. I've never done a panel presentation before on this topic, and boy I'm no expert either, so we'll see how it goes. But i'm pumped about talking with graduating medical students and doctors about the potential of the web for expression/writing and also for organizing around health justice issues.

The PB&J in the title has to do with the progression of blogs from mundane personal expression (I had an amazing PB&J sandwich today) to reflective personal expression (Yummy PB&J sandwich today, and by the way it made me think about the incentives of the drug company that gives us these sandwiches free with our lectures) to community minded, organizing expression and discussion (I love me my PB&J sandwich, what if everyone had a right to PB&J sandwiches, how can we make that happen?). That's the general theme. I'll save this for another post, but I think, with the medical related blogs, we do the first two really well (especially the 2nd), which makes me really happy. But we're not yet at the third, and i'm pumped about being a part of developing the third in the coming months and years.

Lots of other talks. My co-intern and fellow past AMSA Jack Rutledge Fellow Casey's going to talk about sustaining activism during residency, and Andru (co-writer on this blog) is going to be talking at both the AMSA and NPA conference. He's popular, was asked to talk about public hospital and activism issues, as well as this fabulous topic and description:

"Brewing an Affordable Integrative Clinic for Poor and Uninsured Patients - Putting Care and Wonder Back into the Mystery of Health" will include a brief presentation on the creation process involved in birthing a new integrative clinic for uninsured patients in Albuquerque, NM, followed by group discussion of the various elements involved. Audience participation expected. Discussion to include all aspects of "practicing" medicine: team building, racism, pros and cons of insurance, business structure options, malpractice, labs/x-ray/specialist referral, patient advocacy, pharmacy, homeopathy, volunteers, donations, grants, politics, etc. We will discuss some of the laws that stand in the way of connecting good patient care to affordability and some ideas on how to overcome these limitations.

And that's just a snippet of the tons of other great interactive sessions, discussion groups, breakout sessions, and a rally, in the windy city. We'll report more when we're back. More about blogging health justice, the new and much needed National Physicians Alliance and updates from the NPA pow-wow, and other thangs in a few days... though i may need quite a few days to process the intravenous infusion of energy and discussion and building with dreamers, otherwise known as AMSA and NPA.

Over and out.