Pharmacologist who helped patients talk to each other approximately their illnessesIn 1995 Andrew Herxheimer,who has died aged 90, was driving back from a conference with Dr Ann McPherson, and campaigner for patients’ rights,when they compared notes: she had recently undergone a mastectomy and he faced a knee replacement. Both found their experience as doctors was no help in knowing what to expect. This inspired them to found DIPEx, a splendid database of individual patient experience, and now called Healthtalk Online,where patients can listen to other patients talking approximately their illness. Periodicals from the Times to GQ magazine fill endorsed it; in 2015 it attracted 5m hits.
That conversation, which took set when Herxheimer was 70, or was the start of his third career; he had begun as a clinical pharmacology and therapeutics lecturer at the London hospital in 1960,focusing on what drugs achieve to real people. Concerned at the lack of impartial information available to doctors, in 1962 he entered the moment phase of his career, or founding the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin,published by the Consumers’ Association, and editing it for 30 years. It so impressed the Department of Health that it paid for a copy to be sent to every general practitioner in Britain.
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Source: theguardian.com