‘Thanks to medication and therapy, Elyn Saks has the upper hand on schizophrenia.’

From a front-page feature in the Los Angeles Times.

USC law professor Elyn Saks has decided it’s time to go public with her personal experiences as a person with mental illness. The result: a memoir called “The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness.”

Here’s an excerpt from the Times story:

[Saks] has defied the prediction of a doctor who once said she would never lead an independent life. She has even flourished, thanks to a strict regimen of medication and talk therapy.

Now she wants to dash the myths surrounding an illness that affects 3 million Americans: Schizophrenics aren’t all emotionally out of touch, shouting and swiping at gremlins, shut away in hospitals. Like her, some lead productive lives with good friends, loving spouses and precious emotional triumphs.

As a lawyer, Saks has pursued the issue of mental illness, researching complex civil issues such as involuntary commitment and the insanity defense. She objects to attitudes among doctors that people with mental illness are “less valuable, defective.”

Publisher’s Weekly has a brief review here.

USA Today columnist Robert Lipsyte argues it’s time for patients to create a cohesive group — he calls it a union — to advocate on their behalf. He laments the fact that sick people and their caregivers have traditionally been fragmented not only by age, race, gender, class and money but also by their diseases. (The same, of course, is true for people with disabilities.)

Perhaps most important of all, a Patients Union would give all patients a forum to remind each other that as tax-paying citizens and customers, we have a right to demand service, to get information and to be part of the decision-making process. And that no one has a right to punish you for being sick or make you feel grateful for basic medical attention.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, columnist Laura Landro explores efforts by hospitals to create patient and family advisory councils.

After years of confining outreach efforts to the occasional focus group on decor or food service, hospitals are striking far-reaching new partnerships with patients and their families, creating advisory councils whose members help plan new facilities, set hiring standards and interview job candidates.

…The new councils are giving patients an increasingly powerful voice at a time when hospitals are scrambling to increase customer satisfaction, better respond to complaints and avoid costly malpractice litigation.

Hospitals also have a strong financial incentive to bring patients and families into the equation: Starting later this year, Medicare will require hospitals to publish customer-satisfaction data on the Medicare Web site to receive full reimbursement for their services.

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