July 2016 Man of the Month: Jack Whelan

Jack Whelan
Last November, minutes before the deadline to be considered for PVI’s first Patient Voice Impact Award with the Leapfrog Group, we received a nomination for “…an extraordinary patient advocate who is helping bridge the well-known communications gap between patients, physicians, policy makers, pharmaceutical companies and others in life sciences. He’s currently in twice-weekly chemo treatment for a rare incurable blood cancer while still active and often “on-the-road” as a Patient Advocate, Research Advocate and Legislative Advocate.”
Pat and Jack Whelan
That man was Jack Whelan, and the author, his wife, Jan. “Sorry for submitting this so late in the day. I just returned from another long day with Jack where he received another round of chemotherapy. He’ll spend this weekend recovering and will be back on the road next week…”
I smiled…and was also sad. Jan had just spent precious hours outlining the very reasons we’d invited Jack to serve as a PVI advisor. And that’s why it broke my heart to have to tell Jan, sorry – the rules precluded PVI employees and advisors from being considered.
As I told Jan at the time, PVI would find a way in the future to help tell Jack’s extraordinary story. Since then, life has dealt Jack another devastating blow: a diagnosis of stage 4 prostate cancer. So when I was asked to write about Jack as the “Disruptive Women in Healthcare” Man of the Month, it took a nanosecond for me to acc...

Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - July 1, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Man of the Month Uncategorized Source Type: blogs