OUR PATIENT VOICE . . . what's it for?

We want a voice in our medical care.  We want a voice in our insurance.  We want a voice in out government.

Voting is a voice, and demands responsibility.  If the email response on the White House web site doesn't get results, maybe our responsibility is going where there's a news camera.

So a patient's voice gives us power as well as responsibility  It can be used outside the examining room,.

It can be used in the hospital when we fill out the questionnaire and say the waiting room for outpatients is a scandal.

I used mine yesterday when I said to the cashier that I wish CVS would put in a soy-free department.  But I used it to the wrong person.  She didn't seem to be planning to tell the manager.  And I don't know if the manager would plan to tell corporate.  And since even the store layout seems to be homogenized by corporate, that's where the change will come, if there is one.

How many women in the US are taking Tamoxifen?  I don't know if they're all giving up soy because of hormone-nourished tumors - past or present.

This blog is the main place where I use my patient's voice.  Perhaps it's my responsibility to find out how to contact a drug store's corporate office.  Perhaps I can contact Breast Cancer Action, SF, and ask if they have and figures on women who are taking Tamoxifen.  What are the chances my insurance company would tell me?  Ha.

I can ask the medical oncologist if he has any figures.  I can ask why flax seed isn't banned for us to use, since it's supposedly chock full of phytoestrogens - more than soy?

I can use my voice.