stanford

Thank You For Registering For Medicine X

/ Christopher / 1 Comment

Full Disclosure: As a member of the ePatient Advisory Board for Stanford Medicine X, I receive a full scholarship to attend. That said, I’m super excited to officially be part of the 2014 conference. I even took the liberty of updating my profile for the conference program.

This will be my third year attending Medicine X. When I first applied in 2012, I didn’t know why I would be worthy to attend a conference held at Stanford, featuring patient advocates that I knew, respected, and felt that I couldn’t hold a candle to.

In the months after Medicine X 2012, I began to understand my role as a patient advocate and respect the fact that everyone has a story to tell. And every story is worth telling. With that mantra guiding me, I applied for and received an ePatient Scholarship to attend Medicine X in 2013.

Now I’m back, this time as a member of the ePatient Advisory Board. I still believe that everyone’s story is worth telling, and I continue to search for ways to empower and connect with voices and perspectives within patient communities – often focusing within the diabetes online community. Kindred spirits with busted pancreases and all.

And now that the initial abstracts for presentations and panels has been published, there’s even more reason to anticipate this year’s conference.

You can expect more talk about Medicine X as September approaches. Among the many meaningful and noteworthy moments in my journey as a patient advocate, Medicine X is one of the stand outs. Without this conference, this blog would be a rambling mess of cat pictures and nonsense. Now, it’s a rambling mess of cat pictures and nonsense with an occasional call to action or moment of clarity in the busy world of patient advocacy, with a side of patient engagement.

I’m not an authority on any of the stuff I write about here, but conferences like Medicine X help define, refine, and focus my thoughts in ways I never thought possible. This is a big deal for me. If you think it could be a big deal for you, registration is open now.

PS. I know the registration fee might look daunting. Even if you didn’t get a scholarship to attend, there are other options. Just a thought.

About Medicine X – That Time I Wore Google Glass

/ Christopher / 2 Comments

“Christopher, what do you think about this song for the end of the conference?”

That was the question to me from Medicine X’s conference director, Dr. Larry Chu. I had been somewhat vocal about my support for the true Club MedX experience, including lots of bass, between sessions on Twitter so that earned me the honor of unofficial music consultant as the weekend came to a close. In the middle of our discussion about the the upbeat nature of ‘Titanium’, I asked Dr. Chu about the Google Glass that he was wearing.

“You want to try it? Here!”

He didn’t think twice about it. That’s how cool Medicine X is. That’s how awesome Dr. Chu is.

View this post on Instagram

This is happening. #googleglass #MedX

A post shared by Christopher Snider (@iam_spartacus) on

After a 2-minute tutorial, Dr. Chu was off attending to more important matters and I was left to experiment with the reportedly $1,500 (in beta) device for the duration of the final day of the conference.

For the next four hours, I proceeded to toy around with the various functionality of Glass, while remaining respectful that it was configured for Dr. Chu, his twitter account, and his email. Every time he received an email deemed “important” or a Twitter mention, a chime would sound in my right ear letting me know I could engage with the notification. From what I could tell this meant reading the headline of an email or seeing a full tweet. But reading is not the only thing you can do with Glass.
Continue reading →

Going Back to Cali

/ Christopher / 2 Comments

I know people are still wrapping their minds around what happened Boston yesterday. And others are remembering the Maroon and Orange today. I’m going to look beyond the tragedy of late and celebrate a small personal victory.

I was selected to return to this year’s Stanford Medicine X as one of their ePatient Scholars. I’ll continue to post thoughts on Medicine X as the conference approaches and there will be plenty of ways to keep up with my impressions as everything is going down. For now I’m going to smile and be content with the honor of being among some fantastic patient advocates.

Continue reading →

Questions and Answers

/ Christopher / 2 Comments

I’ll be moderating a Google+ Hangout tomorrow night (9pm eastern) featuring a few of the ePatients who attended Medicine X last year. We’ll be discussing the application process, our thoughts on last year’s event, and field questions from Twitter – all in an hour.

Honestly, I’m not sure what to expect. I haven’t done a “group podcast” in a while, and those are audio only. I’m expecting at least one moment of kittens on the webcam, and I’ll do my best to pay attention to what I’m doing on screen, since I’ll be the guy keeping everything moving.

This thing is meant for the people who have already applied and the people on the fence, but I’m going to do my part to make sure you fence sitters get a genuine look at what this conference is all about. Believe me, I was just like you before I submitted my application. I didn’t think I deserved to be there. I didn’t think my voice was worth hearing. I didn’t think I had anything to offer.

I was wrong.

Continue reading →

Inside Medicine X

/ Christopher / Leave a comment

Dr. Larry Chu, Executive Director of Stanford Medicine X and Associate Professor of Anesthesia at Stanford University’s School of Medicine is on the podcast this week talking all about the inner workings of Medicine X. We discuss the initial motivations for designing Medicine X, including the other conferences that served as an inspiration and blueprint for what Dr. Chu hoped to achieve. We also cover lessons learned and briefly tease what 2013 has in store. The conversation finishes up with a brief chat about Dr. Chu’s life as a doctor and we talk about the most realistic television show revolving around the practice of medicine. Enjoy.

Follow Dr. Chu on Twitter at @LarryChu.

You can learn more about Medicine X at medicinex.stanford.edu/.

Continue reading →