Years ago, I had a chance to receive a few copies of Re-Mission and distribute it to local pediatric clinics. I can tell you children fighting cancer loved the game. Now I was glad to read the news about the launch of Re-Mission 2. The company behind it, HopeLab, managed to find big sponsors including the LiveStrong Foundation to improve the game and push it to the next level.
More than five years in the making, Re-Mission 2 consists of six free-to-play online minigames launching tomorrow with a host of support from charities, medical researchers, and major corporations.
The new titles are on the leading edge of “games for health,” a movement to take the engagement of gaming and turn it to the cause of improving health.
I came across a very interesting story. A guy did a pregnancy test just for fun and posted the results on Reddit.com as the test was positive. The first commenter told him he should have himself checked for testicular cancer. He was right.
When that pregnancy test came back positive, CappnPoopDeck made a rage comic about it, and posted it to Reddit. The very first response, from a user named goxilo, was this: “If this is true, you should check yourself for testicular cancer. Seriously. Google it.”
Miley Cyrus, the famous TV star, got a haircut and was criticized for that, but there came an amazing tweet about she donating her hair to cancer charity from the Twitter account of “Official Cancer“, a foundation fighting cancer. This image is among trending topics on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. This is how you draw attention to a serious cause with a nice twist.
A Facebook campaign was launched a few weeks ago in order to urge Mattel to produce a bald version of its Barbie doll that will help children with cancer and others who have lost their hair due to illness cope with their conditions while playing. An excerpt from a recent article:
“We hope it gets the message out that being bald is beautiful and is no big deal. There’s no need to cover up,” she said.
Sypin’s own daughter is one of those children. The 12-year-old, named Kin Inich, lost her hair after chemotherapy.
Even though her daughter isn’t a huge Barbie fan, Sypin said she is excited about the idea.
“She said if they make one, she would totally get it,” Sypin said. “The first thing she said was if they make that doll, she would buy a bunch and take them to a children’s hospital and give them to children with cancer.”
2011 was a very intense and exciting year regarding the developments and new insights of the relationship between medicine/healthcare and social media. Here are my favourite stories from 2011 selected and featured month by month.
As the number of medical websites is exponentially growing, it’s getting harder to find quality and relevant resources in oncology, a very sensitive and fast-growing field of medicine. The newest selection on Webicina.com, Oncology and Web 2.0, was designed to help you find relevant and quality resources even in social media. Blogs, podcasts, news sites, communities, mobile apps and many more.
PeRSSonalized Oncology, the simplest, free, customizable, multi-lingual medical information aggregator will also let you follow these resources easily in a personalized way.
Feel free to share any of these resources and let us know if you think others should be added.
If you are wondering how Webicina and PeRSSonalized Medicine work, here are some tutorials:
I’ve recently come across a really controversial story about a cancer patient who blogged and complained about his hospital treatment and has been threatened with legal action by an NHS trust.
Daniel Sencier was worried about delays at Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary and had surgery at another hospital. He complained to North Cumbria University Hospital Trust and it came up with an action plan to improve care.
But Mr Sencier, 59, of Penrith, then received a letter threatening legal action. The trust declined to comment.
Mr Sencier, a photography student, had expected an apology but then received a letter saying the trust would consider legal action if his blog contained “unsubstantiated criticism”.
There is a really moving story on CNN.com about a blogger who left a post mortem message on his blog after his battle with cancer. I’ve seen many blogs which just became archives after the blogger (mainly cancer patients) passed away. This is the first time in my experience when the blogger made this transition himself.
“Here it is. I’m dead,” read the last internet post of Derek K. Miller, who died last week after more than four years of blogging about his struggle with colorectal cancer.
“In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote — the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive,” he wrote on his blog, penmachine.com.
