Welcome

[matt]

If you’ve just arrived as a Pioneer member this is where it all begins. HealthUnlocked is a social network for health advocates like yourself to start an online movement. It’s about reaching other people and pooling together a mixture of information, support and experience to empower and change the lives of others. Most people with similar health interests also have something unique in their own experience that can help others. Everything here is designed to help you unlock the power of the crowd.

Back in 2007 I was a resident surgeon in a leading UK hospital. Our government was launching a series of changes to the way specialist doctors like myself were being accredited, and 99% of us felt it was a damaging step for the nation’s health, harmful both to us and future generations of patients we’d be treating. Big health institutions weren’t interested, so myself and a handful of doctors got together online. We started bringing more and more doctors into the group through the web. At first many thought we were crazy but quickly we became grassroots advocates for a generation of UK doctors, and in a couple of months we had a movement of 15,000 that provided support, inspiration and information to each other. We organized the biggest medical rally in UK history, an ongoing media campaign and, eventually, a high profile legal action. We got the health reforms radically changed for the better. See the article: bit.ly/R3tCM4

I learnt a lot about the immense power of togetherness, so when I joined forces with Jorge (our CEO) to dream up HealthUnlocked one of the main goals we shared was to make creating an online movement easier for inspired health advocates like you. From my own experience the importance of the group pioneers is the key.

That’s why you being here and reading this today is an important moment. In my experience if you can summon up the persistence to connect with other pioneers, create some activity, and trigger the spirit of a community, there’s no end to what you will go on to achieve together.

This 3 minute TED lecture speaks volumes about it

youtu.be/RXMnDG3QzxE(Not working as expected?)

[Billmox]

Hello all, I have arrived here from the ITP page. I was diagnosed with bowel cancer two years ago, after I went to my doctor with heavy bleeding per rectum, she called an ambulance and I was off to hospital, I was there for three days and no tests were done. I was called in for a CT scan and an endoscopy, about a month later.

Anyway, it was found that I had a T2 tumor which was located in my colon, I had sugery with out any chemo or radio therapy, because of my ITP. I had my rectum removed and now have a stoma. I have a check up every six months and a CT scan yearly, I take no medication as a result of the cancer.

I have to point out prior to all this I always sent the bowel cancer screening envelopes that had been send me and they always came back as negative, so it was a surprise to me when I was diagnosed with cancer.

I think that it is the knowledge and skill of the surgeon's and their teams and of course the NHS, that people like me can survive now.

Bill M