Postcards to Doctors - new project from ME Action

ahimsa

ahimsa

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
A new project from ME Action:
www.meaction.net said:
#MEAction is excited to announce the launch of our Postcards to Doctors medical education campaign. Send beautifully-designed, handwritten postcards to doctors in your state today to encourage them to learn about myalgic encephalomyelitis!

Postcards to Doctors will work a lot like Postcards to Voters. The Postcards to Voters campaign leveraged handwritten postcards to individuals in order to encourage them to vote. #MEAction’s Postcards to Doctors will use the same model in order to solicit clinicians in your state to take the Unrest medical education course (CME) and attend in-person medical education events.

Studies show that handwritten notes and letters have a far greater impact than emails or printed documents. In medicine, this personalization is more important than ever, showing that we are more than just a set of symptoms — and standing out from the dozens of emails clinicians receive about CME every year.
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Note: Since the current CME is only available in the U.S., we are only providing addresses for doctors in the U.S. at this time.

Read full details at https://www.meaction.net/postcards-to-doctors/
 
I just got my first set of postcards in the mail. Yay!

I'm going to try to write one a day, maybe one every other day.

I expected to get a list of addresses for doctors with them but maybe those will come by email. I'll keep you posted.
 
Louie41 said:
Man, I'm going to have to write small to get all that on a postcard!
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So true!

I had to practice several times on slips of paper to get my handwriting that small. But I finally managed to fit it all in!

Here's a photo (with the doctor's name removed)

CORRECTION: I wrote the wrong URL on the card. I edited the photo to show the correct address - unrest.film/cme - instead of the incorrect address that I had written by hand.

Postcard - text side.jpg

Pardon the blurred image. I obviously didn't get the focus right.
 
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For those who are curious, the line on the postcard that says "Untitled: Emily Lawton" refers to the design on the other side of the card.

Patients are free to design their own cards. I saw a link to a template but I never clicked on it because I just went with the pre-designed cards.

The cards from ME Action have five different designs. Here's what they look like (screen shot from the ME Action website):

Postcard designs.jpg

(edited for clarification)
 
Just a note for anyone else who is doing this project.

The previous instructions for what to write on postcards had an error in the URL. This has now been corrected on the meaction.net website.

The URL for the CME course should be written with a slash and in lower case, like this - unrest.film/cme

I was so focused on getting my handwriting small enough, and copying the text exactly, that I didn't notice it until after I took the photo and posted it. Then thought, "Hey, that's a funny looking URL..."

I'm have modified the photo in my previous post since that was faster than modifying the postcard (which I will do eventually).

[Edited to make more sense]
 
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ahimsa said:
I just got my first set of postcards in the mail. Yay!

I'm going to try to write one a day, maybe one every other day.

I expected to get a list of addresses for doctors with them but maybe those will come by email. I'll keep you posted.
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ahimsa said:
I got the doctors' addresses via email.
I plan to write the first card today. :emoji_writing_hand:
If all goes well I may even take a photo and post on twitter. :emoji_fingers_crossed:
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I got postcards with no directions and no addresses included, but after reading this I will scour my inbox and see if I missed something.
 
I found the text on the website
Dear Dr. ____,

I’m a member of your community and a person with the multi-system disease ME, which is twice as common as MS and more disabling. The CDC calls ME “America’s hidden health crisis”. Please take the nationally accredited CME course at unrest.film/cme and learn from an expert clinician how you can help patients like me!
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(bolding in original)

It was also in the photo but probably easier to use the website version.

I can find addresses by myself. All is good.

(I do wonder though, I heard reports that CDC had removed the wording "hidden health crisis", and I can't find it on the website although I didn't look at every last page. Maybe they still say that at conferences?)
 
WillowJ said:
I found the text on the website
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Yes, sorry for any confusion! I thought you already knew where to find the full instructions or I would have pointed out where they were.
WillowJ said:
(I do wonder though, I heard reports that CDC had removed the wording "hidden health crisis", and I can't find it on the website although I didn't look at every last page. Maybe they still say that at conferences?)
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I know it was still on the CDC website as of May 12th this year. I checked because I used that exact phrase on a poster for our local May 12th Millions Missing display.

The blog post is still there but someone at the CDC has changed the title of the blog post (Post last updated: May 14, 2019).

This link lists the ten CDC blog posts from 2017 with the most views. It uses the original title for the May 2017 blog post.

CDC blog title - Americas Hidden Health Crisis.png
MEpedia also references this same CDC blog post using the original title.

But if you go to that CDC blog post it shows a new title:

ME/CFS: Making strides to enhance the lives of those living with ME/CFS

I'm still going to use the phrase "America's hidden health crisis." It's true that the CDC has updated the blog title but this phrase was something that they did use to describe ME. And it was on the website for 2 years.

Also, the ME Action instructions say "Language for the postcards should be replicated exactly." I would feel awkward modifying the language.

However, it seems reasonable to send a question to ME Action to make sure this phrase is still okay. Maybe the wording could be tweaked a bit? (eg, change "The CDC calls ME ..." to "The CDC has called ME ...")
 
ahimsa said:
Also, the ME Action instructions say "Language for the postcards should be replicated exactly." I would feel awkward modifying the language.

However, it seems reasonable to send a question to ME Action to make sure this phrase is still okay. Maybe the wording could be tweaked a bit? (eg, change "The CDC calls ME ..." to "The CDC has called ME ...")
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Oh definitely I wouldn't want to modify it more than that, especially after promising to use their wording. But that seems a good change. :)
 
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