February 5, 2013

In Online Patient Communities, How Much Sharing Is Too Much?

By Logan Lafferty

When you become a patient, a whole new world of social networking opens up. There's one site that was described to me as being "like Match.com for cancer patients," because it sorts its users by a/s/l, along with type of cancer and treatment…On the positive side, patients finding each other online can promote research that will directly benefit them, as was the case for patients with spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD), a rare and poorly understood disease. The "SCAD Ladies," having found one another online in numbers greater than most experts believed even existed, convinced a Mayo Clinic cardiologist to research their condition.

 

The Atlantic by Lindsay Abrams

Tags: Cancer, Community, Community, online, SCAD, Social Media, social network, Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection, The Atlantic

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