Why not Participatory Medicine?

If this participation thing is so great, why don't we apply it to something really important, like medicine? Why not, indeed?

Welcome to JoPM, a New Peer-Reviewed, Open Access Journal

Our mission is to transform the culture of medicine to be more participatory. This special introductory issue is a collection of essays that will serve as the 'launch pad' from which the journal will grow. We invite you to participate as we create a robust journal to empower and connect patients, caregivers, and health professionals.

More specifically:

Because the Journal of Participatory Medicine is a new journal publishing multidisciplinary articles on topics within a new, not yet defined field, we have established draft parameters that define the journal’s range of interest. We anticipate that these parameters will change somewhat as the field develops. In the meantime, the following characterize the field of participatory medicine.

I particularly liked the following section, with its emphasis on openness:

New Knowledge Creation stems from the collaboration of researchers and patients, as individuals and as groups.

1. Health professionals and patients sharing in the discussion of scientific methods, including open discussion about the level of evidence of the research

2. Open, transparent process that demonstrates collaboration and participation in research

3. Patients with significant interest in a topic joining together to create repositories for research, including (but not limited to) registries, tissue banks and genetic databases; demonstrating mutual respect for the contributions of the data owners and health research professionals with the tools to gain insight from those repositories. Interpretation of results and conclusions including involvement of all stakeholders.

Important stuff, worth a read.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.