Just a little update on our survey. I’d like to thank everyone who has responded so far. We’re up to 24, and everyone has been thoughtful and detailed in their answers. We appreciate this very much, and these perspectives are extremely helpful.

There is a lot of commonality in people’s experiences, especially in how they prepare for their appointments and come ready with questions for their doctor. There are also some striking differences around how engaged doctors are with their patients during appointments … some seem interested in how PD effects every phase of a person’s life while other seem more dismissive.

In terms of our interest in questions that go beyond the patient / physician relationship... yes of course. We know we have much to learn from patients.

This survey is informal and is helping us with a particular element of a project where we how to collect data from patients for research. Our narrow interest in the doctor visits revolves around our hope to design "one pagers" that summarize collected data that patients can print and share with their docs at visits. We are trying to understand from all perspectives what kind of dialogue is taking place in that setting with a mind toward assuring that a one-pager is in sync / useful.

Again, the primary focus of our project is data collection for research but we assume patients who contribute data may want to "share" it with their physicians so we are inquiring via this survey about that particular interaction. The questions in this survey aren't indicative of all the questions we intend our tool to monitor/report on.

So, for those of you who work with physicians, your input is useful for this particular part of our project. If you haven’t taken this survey, I encourage you to do so. Again, our intention is to be better informed about how doctors and patients interact and communicate. Your answers are anonymous and will help guide some of our current efforts.

Thanks again

Debi