Welcome to my website and blog!
I’m a physician, journalist and speaker with an informed perspective on health care. I’ve been a patient ever since I can remember. As a child with scoliosis – a curved spine, I learned early on what it was like to wait in doctors’ offices and be treated as though my concerns didn’t matter. Years later, long after med school, I found myself a working mom with breast cancer. By then, I’d become an oncologist and researcher in the area of immune and malignant blood disorders. Gradually, my health got the best of me. Time off was not my choice, but it did give me insights on being a patient, being a doctor and privacy.
Now my interests include cancer science and treatment, medical ethics, disability and doctors’ health. I am a fierce advocate for patients’ rights and informed decision-making.
My freelance work has appeared in Slate, the Atlantic, Scientific American, the New York Times, Cure Magazine and the New York Observer. In late 2009 I began a personal blog, Medical Lessons. I write occasional columns for the Huffington Post, mainly on women’s health and cancer.
I live with my husband in New York City. We have two college-age sons. When I’m not writing or teaching, you might find me in a pool swimming laps or engaging a giant noodle in a water-exercise class for arthritis. Lately I’ve been hanging out in old libraries, doing research for my first book.
Please poke around the blog, comment if you will, and — for more frequent updates — follow me on Twitter, @ElaineSchattner!
April, 2013
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