THE BOOK SHELF: Patient advocate helps readers navigate health-care system

Nova Scotia’s health-care system succeeds in many ways but one way it doesn’t is by failing to be patient-centred – that’s according to Mary Jane Hampton, a long-time health-care planner and CBC Radio columnist.

Hampton’s guide, which includes helpful forms and checklists, provides readers with 73 health hacks or tips ranging from gender bias in health care and being your own fiercest advocate to how to best explain your symptoms to your doctor. Hampton’s tips include: use your own words to describe your symptoms; don’t let your care provider put words in your mouth; be as descriptive as you can and include when you have your symptoms, how often and in what situations.

“Every point of access should either solve your problem or give you a seamless step to the place where your problem can be solved. I doubt that is how most people would describe their experience through the health system.” “Time can create distance, even from ourselves; no straight line connects then and now. This collection is a kind of ana, a collage of story, anecdote, and reflection that gathers up a woman’s life to try to make sense of it. What and who matters? Why? Here the reader will find a kaleidoscope of prose pieces, mixtapes and mash-ups of earlier writing, journals, letters, online conversations, and more,” she writes in the book’s prologue.

“Each morning I carry into the day ancestors, my birth and immediate families, friends and acquaintances, those who taught me, loved me, pushed me, hurt me, inspired me. I carry my strengths and sorrows, faults and quirks. If I knocked on your door today, you wouldn’t believe“As for me, I want to take stock: Who and what have created the person I am? What learning awaits? And so I write.

Source: Healthcare Press (healthcarepress.net)

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