Dave deBronkart, known on the internet as e-Patient Dave, is the author of Let Patients Help: A Patient Engagement Handbook and a leading advocate for patient empowerment. After beating stage IV kidney cancer in 2007 he became a blogger, health policy advisor and international keynote speaker, speaking and participating in nearly 500 conferences and policy meetings in 15 countries. He is a co-founder and Chair Emeritus of the Society for Participatory Medicine. He has appeared in Time, U.S. News, USA Today, the Washington Post, Wired, MIT Technology Review, and the HealthLeaders cover story “Patient of the Future.” His writings have been published in the British Medical Journal, the Society for General Internal Medicine Forum, iHealthBeat, and the conference journal of the American Society for Clinical Oncology. In 2009 HealthLeaders named him and his doctor to their annual list of “20 People Who Make Healthcare Better.”
He serves on the BMJ’s patient advisory panel, his blog is being captured in the NLM’s History of Medicine Division, he is a Mayo Clinical Social Media Platinum Fellow, he was the first patient inducted into the Healthcare Internet Hall of Fame, and he was the Mayo Clinic’s 2015 Visiting Professor in Internal Medicine. His TED Talk Let Patients Help was for years was in the top half of the most viewed TED Talks of all time with nearly half a million views.