P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

I've learnt some important lessons: I never rely on the opinion of one doctor alone. I do my own research; I read up and am ready with questions I need answered.

Increasingly we know that we're going to have multiple medical conditions, and the person who's got the greatest incentive to manage those conditions is the patient him or herself.

The thing with cancer is that it's usually the chemo rather than the disease itself that makes the patient feel so ill, particularly at the start.

Curious patients are more receptive to new ideas, and those who engage their health practitioners in a dialogue are much more likely to adhere to these recommendations.

In addition to having a good partnership with a good doctor, you have to do some of the work yourself. Go online, read about it, and find out what you can tolerate.

We would like doctors to listen, but the fact is, we better be ready to be able to talk to them. You're going to have to be an active participant in that conversation, so I'd say the American people are going to need ways of stepping up to the conversation.

One reason for high health care costs is that patients fail to follow their treatment regimen.

Doctors are wonderful people, but they don't know everything. We're all responsible for our own health, and shouldn't feel guilty if we ask questions or get second opinions.

Most people assume that physician language is akin to technical, non-understandable jargon. It does not have to be that way. Doctors do not perform witchcraft. They simply interpret what they are told and what tests reveal. They diagnose and prescribe treatment. Our responsibility is to help doctors know what is going on in our bodies and to insist on clear, precise, understandable language in response.

What person doesn't search online about their disease after they are diagnosed?

I always think, medically... you really have to be your advocate. You have to be able to back up everything that you're feeling with some information and protect yourself through the world of hospitals and doctors' offices, so the more information the better.

I was on the board of the Mayo Clinic. I was diagnosed there, and I could pick up the phone and get a hold of whoever I wanted to. What I learned is that you really have to get proactive and manage your case.

We tend not to use the biggest resource in healthcare - the patients themselves. So I'm trying to figure out possible uses for digital technologies like Facebook but also real-life social networks to improve healthcare provision.

Fundamentally, the answers to our challenges in healthcare relies in engaging and empowering the individual.

Heart disease continues to be the number one killer; cancer, the number 2 killer, not far behind. The tragic aspect of these deadly diseases is that they could all be cured, I do believe, if we had sufficient funding.

Patients want to be seen as people. For me, the person's life comes first; the disease is simply one aspect of it, which I can guide my patients to use as a redirection in their lives. When doctors look at their patients, however, they are trained to see only the disease.

I began seeing my wife, Kathleen, while I was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer.

I'm an e-patient: equipped, enabled, empowered, engaged. I'm no clinician, but I do everything in my power to help them, to play an active role in my own care, and even in the design of care.

An educated patient is empowered; thus, more likely to become healthy.

You don't have free will when you have lung cancer.

If doctors just spent more time with their patients so they felt more reassured, that might help.

Value in medicine depends on information - as I said in 'Let Patients Help,' 'People perform better when they're informed better.' It follows that to make patients and families more effective in care, they need to know more.

When you have a diagnosis of cancer, or any serious illness, your choices are basically to be passive and kind of accept whatever is offered you, or to be active and to learn about your disease, and understand your options, and be an active partner with your doctor. That's the course I took with all three of my cancers.

As patients and consumers, we are better informed today about our health care than any previous generation.

I think the idea of participating in your own health care and being responsible to the extent you can be of your own health, it seems to me a lot like self-reliance and individual responsibility. This cuts through the partisan divide.