DAY 1: 8 FEBRUARY 2018
Our lovely Patient Advocate Piarella kicked off with co-host Becky Malby from London South Bank University co host our annual congress. Our theme was “The countless small deeds of the unknown people” and we know these DO matter.
Never doubt for a moment that your actions can change the world for someone.. That was the powerful message from Seun Adebiyi. Annemieke Roobeek from Nyenrode University and Meeting More Minds made us remember that every patients counts and that every life counts. Bring different people on different levels together. Get outside your silo, connect, invest and have an impact together.
Stephen Friend impressed us with his talk about Designing Tools for Navigating between our Health and Disease: Symptom Predictions and Return of Agency and how we need to find new ways to navigate between health and disease.
In the Rapid Fire Talks some very powerful messages came across. Thank you, Marta Fernandez from the Fundacion Josep Carreras, Isaac Bullock Kinut from Accenture and Willem Ernst Herter from Pacmed. Tim van Veenendaal made our lovely PA Piarella laugh with the story about his VR company and how this can contribute to change in healthcare. And our PA Barbara blew us away with her story about her being diaganosed with colon cancer. Her small act of paying herself for a drug she got refused and speaking out about it helped changed the law in the UK.
We went into a panel discussion led by Ian Banks, vice President ECC. HE is joined by Seun Adebiyi (Bone marrow registry), Maurice Wiegman (Passiezonderbeperking), Natacha Bolaños (Lymphoma Coalition Europe) & Ronald Brus (myTomorrows). Interesting panel discussion about being a pain in the .., forget limitations, never ever quit and how important early access to drugs can be.
DAY 2: 9 FEBRUARY 2018
On our final day we talked about change, how to deal with data and how to control it. Thank you Erik Teunissen, Kadija Ferryman and Gaston Remmers for your inspiration. We also let the Beginners Mind meet with the Experienced Hand. Ernst Hafen from ETH Zürich and James N’Dow from the University Aberdeen brought their students to discuss the impact of data on health and evidence based care. Dik van Gent from the Eramus Medical Center and his students reflect on the lab perspective. Parag Mankeekar and his Indian students talked to us about empathy. In the afternoon we worked in groups on these subjects.
Last but not least we awarded Dr. Bob Pinedo and Fr. Fritz Schröder, both Emeritus Professor, with the Patient Advocate Hero of Cancer Award for their lifelong achievement in putting patients first.
And remember: WE ARE ALL WEBBERS; connect stakeholders, identify challenges and new businesses, act with empathy and use technology!
Thank you all for being there with us in real life or on social media. We will share all presentations and video reports with you in the near future so read, like and share to stay tuned!