Posted by Jill Plevinsky on December 04, 2012
Jill Plevinsky | Patient Advisory Council Chair
I've been raising awareness for Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis ever since I can remember through fundraising, speaking engagements, social media, and more recently, academia. But always in the back of my head, I've wondered: is awareness enough?
Don't get me wrong, I definitely think it's a huge piece of the puzzle, but there are so many other things that we can do as patients to improve the lives of those with IBD while doctors and researchers search for a cure, and that's what this week is about to me. There's so much we can do.. we can volunteer at Camp Oasis, we can share our story and offer support to our readers and followers like Sara Ringer of Inflamed and Untamed, we can create social networking platforms like Crohnology to help patients better connect with one another online and in person, and most importantly, we can collaborate.
As the chair of the ImproveCareNow and C3N Project's Patient Advisory Council, I lead a group of young patients in collaborating with interventions being developed by the C3N Project - and everyday this week myself and our two Patient Scholars (Jennie David and Sami Kennedy) will be telling you about one of them. This is the first time we're telling everyone about what we're working on, and how young patients with IBD can help us.
So look for our posts all week on LOOP, and get involved!
[editor's note: this post was written by Jill to kick off #ibdweek and was originally shared on her personal blog.]