The Impatient Podcast

The OAM Announcement Episode

The OAM Announcement Episode
A Surprise (mini) Episode, with some incredible news.
 
Liam and Sean
xx
www.impatientadvocacy.org/ | i: @impatientadvocacyHosts: Liam Crank (@liam__crank) & Sean Crank (@seancrank)
And of course: Nicole Cooper (@nicolecoopy)
And the beautiful music: Dean Pratt (i: @dean.pratt)

A Drink to Remember – The Mumsy Ep

Recorded on the day of the party to celebrate Nicole’s life: Mumsy, Sean and Liam reminisce about Nicole's life, legacy, and determination as we raise a glass of expensive champagne in her memory. Mumsy discusses Nicole’s sudden decline and the circumstances surrounding the end of her patient battle, as well as touching on they key parts of her patient journey and answering questions posed by you, the people!
Where we would normally be joined by an advocate or subject matter expert, we decided there’s no greater expert on Nicole’s impact on the world around us than Mumsy. We discuss the impact Nicole has had and the legacy that she worked so hard to shape.
So grab a glass of champagne and join us as we celebrate Nicole's life and the impact she had on those around her.
 
www.theimpatientpodcast.com.au | i: @theimpatientpodcastHosts: Liam Crank (@liam__crank) & Sean Crank (@seancrank)
And of course: Nicole Cooper (@nicolecoopy)
And the beautiful music: Dean Pratt (i: @dean.pratt)

Episode 10 - Health at Work

Health at Work.Workplace injury has long been characterised by slips, trips and falls - hazards that can be signposted and dodged.But what happens when workplace risk is more psychological than physical, and a work injury presents not as a broken bone, but slow burn of tiredness, tears and social detachment?In our season one bonus ep, the impatient podcast goes deep into co-host Sean’s workplace mental health injury and resulting patient life. The diagnosis, the treatment, and the system that surrounds it all… is it fit for purpose?We then meet Carlye, psychologist and rather conveniently, Sean's darn fabulous girlfriend. Carlye shares her professional expertise in working with individuals carrying out high stress roles, and her personal experience of living with a partner facing a mental illness.This is an intimate, vulnerable, fascinating chat about bed hogging, diagnosis questioning, safe working and brain saving.Not. To. Be. Missed.
 
Some mental health support options (in Australia):
 
Check if your employer OR your family member or spouse’s employer offers an Employee Assistance Program. Often they have free and confidential counselling available for employees and their family members.
You can find a psychologist via: https://psychology.org.au/find-a-psychologist or https://www.psychologytoday.com/au
This website lists a variety of types of mental health professionals and only lists practitioners who are available: https://talklink.com.au/
Attend your GP for a mental health care plan, or even just a chat! Some GP’s are specially trained in mental health and they can offer counselling too
Find your local Primary Health Network or Community Mental Health Centre in your area and see what services they can offer (often low cost or free)
For a range of digital health offerings, local referral options and a search tool of what to look for, try https://www.headtohealth.gov.au/
For an assessment and online treatment programs head to Mindspot https://www.headtohealth.gov.au/supporting-yourself/head-to-health-services
Helplines, webchats and text lines are great entry-points or immediate brief counselling options if you’re having a hard day or hard time navigating. Try Beyond Blue https://www.beyondblue.org.au/about-us/contact-us
If you’re having thoughts of suicide, contact Lifeline at lifeline.org.au or Suicide Call Back Service on https://www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au/
 
To get in touch with Carlye, email carlye@risepsychology.com.au
 
www.theimpatientpodcast.com.au | i: @theimpatientpodcastHosts: Nicole Cooper (@nicolecoopy) & Sean Crank (@seancrank)
Guests: Carlye Weiner
And the beautiful music: Dean Pratt (i: @dean.pratt)

Episode 09 - Let’s be Brief

Yo!
 
The Impatient Crew have taken a few moments, deep breaths, and sips of rosé to bring you this delicious Season One wrap. We are incredibly humbled by your response to the launch of our podcast. We could not be more proud of what we created, and are continually blown away by the feedback and support. We are also devastated to have lost a core member of our Impatient team - the incomparable Dean Pratt.
 
So this episode is about being present and available for each other. Sean and I, and everyone, really.
We talk about Dean's beautiful piece of music and how much he will be forever part of our Impatient Team.
We talk about how the birth of The Impatient Podcast.
We talk about advocacy and what it means to us.
We talk about driving change - and whether we are fighting for or against things.
We talk about our fav bits of Season One, and all the joy of impatient-ing we have coming up in Season Two.
We are here for patient access, equality and all things anti-abstract! We can't wait to welcome come back in Season Two. Please drop us a review if you're loving our work, or a share if you are feeling the vibes.
 
www.theimpatientpodcast.com.au | i: @theimpatientpodcastHosts: Nicole Cooper (@nicolecoopy) & Sean Crank (@seancrank)
And the beautiful music: Dean Pratt (i: @dean.pratt)

Episode 08 - We’re all People

Ever noticed our health system rocking up with glazed eyes, looking stressed and short-tempered, staring right through the patient who is actually its purpose? Hmm. We have questions. The Impatient Podcast breaks with our own format yet again this week to maximise our quality time with patient turned doctor Ben Bravery - a guy with a lot of good answers! We unpack:
Ben's cancer diagnosis, featuring a couple of (less sexy) poo moments; a (loud) mum chat; (helpful) nosey neighbours; (legitimate) second opinions; a good dose of incredulous accusation, ego and offence from senior doctors; and finally, a treatment plan.
Ben's incremental realisation that perhaps he could be a doctor and take on medicine - to get there, to become one of them, and ultimately, to disrupt the model.
Just how much attention is paid to the patient during medical school (spoiler alert.... ).
What it is really like to be part of a brand new student medical team shuffling around the hospital ward.
Why right now is the perfect time to write about his experience in his brand new book, The Patient Doctor.
This is patient-first medicine. Ben brings his life experience, his patient status, his career-long learnings, and his medical education to define and deliver the value proposition in medicine: the human side of healthcare! His plain speaking talk and countless examples point to just how achievable and necessary change is. What a guest!Of course, we hear as always from Sean and Nicole who share their Impatient Weeks - for Sean, the complex and often counter productive path to resolving and recovering from a workplace injury when dealing with a system that is not fit for purpose. And Nicole shares the launch of the Bowel Cancer Outcomes Registry (BCOR) as an independent charity that now has great opportunity to build data and insights on bowel cancer care in Australia and New Zealand. What a way to wrap Bowel Cancer Awareness Month! (edited) 
 
www.theimpatientpodcast.com.au | i: @theimpatinentpodcastHosts: Nicole Cooper (@nicolecoopy) & Sean Crank (@seancrank)Guests: Dr Ben Bravery (@drbenbravery)Music: Dean Pratt (i: @dean.pratt)
Please note that the impatient podcast contains interviews with patients who share their experiences of the Australian health system, which include personal accounts of acute and chronic health conditions

Episode 07 - Patient to Advocate

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a rare, life threatening inherited disorder that damages the lungs and digestive system. People with CF develop thick and sticky mucus, meaning a person with CF undergoes constant treatments and physiotherapy to function. There is currently no cure for CF. Jessica Bean has been a CF patient for her entire life - and a patient advocate for her whole life - in her spirit, her commitment and her dedication to championing the right and role of patients as participants in Australia's healthcare system.
This week, The Impatient Podcast uses Jess' experience as a case study for advocacy. The critical importance of Jess' perspective lays in her ability to capture a lifelong experience with a chronic disease: how the relationship with your health, your body, your therapies, your disease, evolves over time, and the mechanisms you must must have as a patient to make these evolutions seen and understood.Jess has so much to school us on:
What a clinical trial looks and feels like as a patient participant - and what the statistical results of that trial might show in contrast.
How treatments may work in ways that matter to patients - and whether patients can actually communicate what matters to the people who make the decisions.
The guilt that plagues patients who can access therapies that others cannot.
How to navigate being well enough for a clinical trial but sick enough for compassionate access to a drug.
The crippling reality that therapeutic approval of a drug or government subsidisation of a drug does not actually equal patient access to a drug.
Future proofing the Australian health care system that must occur to allow for the innovative drugs that are currently in development.
Sean and Nicole are so grateful as always for the vulnerability shown by Jess during her discussion with us. Jess has seen a hole in our health system that cannot be unseen, and chooses to do something about it. Everyday. For all of us.
Jess is our ultimate patient and system expert package, captured in her role as President and Secretary of Patient Voice Initiative: visit PVI for information about decision-making bodies, tips, resources, and pathways to patient participation in our healthcare system. https://www.patientvoiceinitiative.org
 
www.theimpatientpodcast.com.au | i: @theimpatinentpodcastHosts: Nicole Cooper (@nicolecoopy) & Sean Crank (@seancrank)Guests: Jessica Bean (@jessicabeancoach)Music: Dean Pratt (i: @dean.pratt)
Please note that the impatient podcast contains interviews with patients who share their experiences of the Australian health system, which include personal accounts of acute and chronic health conditions

Episode 06 - Caring for Carers

Episode 6 - Caring for Carers
On an otherwise ordinary Wednesday, teacher and comedian Jess Pratt would step into a full time role that she would have never voluntarily chosen: carer. In this powerful and practical episode, Jess shares the reality of being a 'patient by proxy'. The loneliness and loss of identity; the bewilderment and learning; the anxiety and uncertainty; the ambition and advocacy.
We then speak to psychologist and neuroscientist Perri Curtis, a cancer widow and carer herself, for an absorbing and thought-provoking reflection on what it is to care.  We delve into the somewhat inevitable, beautifully intentioned but often unhelpful statement: "let me know if there is anything I can do to help". And we sit in the reality of everyone, eventually, encountering the requirement to care or be cared for.
This episode delivers such valuable insights into what happens in the chaos that encircles a health crisis. And critically, challenges the health system to make room for the carer, as a participant in the process. This is essential listening for anyone who cares.
www.theimpatientpodcast.com.au | i: @theimpatinentpodcastHosts: Nicole Cooper (@nicolecoopy) & Sean Crank (@seancrank)Guests: Jess Pratt & Perri Curtis Music: Dean Pratt (i: @dean.pratt)
Please note that the impatient podcast contains interviews with patients who share their experiences of the Australian health system, which include personal accounts of acute and chronic health conditions

Episode 05 - Death and Life

This episode contains a discussion of voluntary assisted dying.
Siobhan O'Sullivan is an advocate for the under dog, for ovarian cancer patients, and actually, for each and every one of us. Siobhan is tackling the toughest of life problems: contemplating her almost certain death as a result of terminal cancer. Siobhan has shared some of her very precious time with The Impatient Podcast to discuss the insidious nature of her disease, the taboo of death talk, and the immediate need to give every Australian the option to choose death at the end of life.
We are then joined by Andrew Denton, best known as a masterful creator of Australian TV, who is now a full time advocate for Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD). We discuss Andrew's transition to advocate, the progress of VAD legislation in Australia, the role of faith in end of life care, and the impossible power dynamic that some dying patients will face in trying to reduce their unbearable pain and suffering.
This stuff must be discussed, and we are damn grateful for the people who choose to sit in the mess of death to make it better for the rest of us.
www.theimpatientpodcast.com.au | i: @theimpatinentpodcastHosts: Nicole Cooper (@nicolecoopy) & Sean Crank (@seancrank)Guests: Siobhan O'Sullivan; Andrew Denton for Go Gentle Australia @gogentle_ausMusic: Dean Pratt (i: @dean.pratt)
Please note that the impatient podcast contains interviews with patients who share their experiences of the Australian health system, which include personal accounts of acute and chronic health conditions

Episode 04 - Get Another Opinion

What makes a healthcare system great? Are we great when we are delivering against expectations? Shuffling in step with the status quo?
Or are we great when we do the exceptional? The novel, innovative and extremely challenging work that saves, extends and meaningfully improves a human life?
I am alive today, five years beyond my ‘terminal diagnosis’ because of a second opinion. Because someone said ‘no’, someone else said ‘maybe’, and someone else said ‘let’s try’.
To me, a great health care system enables this boundary pushing work, for everyone. Human work, that is evolving, reflective, and collaborative. And critically, conducted by people with buckets of passion and an absence of defensiveness. Tested and validated using rigorous standards. Evaluated regularly against its global peers. Understood to be never quite good enough, because medicine is never quite done achieving what is possible.
A great health system would consider a second opinion essential to decision making and would design these junctions intentionally, to calibrate and cross-check and sap every last opportunity for a patient.
A health system operating below its potential would view a second opinion as a patient’s problem. A low priority. It would lump this nice-to-have in with other patient empowerment issues, like system performance metrics, access, affordability, continuity of care, health literacy, communication and mental health support.
That’s not a great system. That‘s not a patient-centred system. That’s a system that needs to do better.
Thank you for lending your ears to this episode, all about my diagnosis and the ‘… etc’ that has been my 5 year cancer fight. Here’s to the remarkable gift that is living, and the power of recognising the system improvements we can all individually make.
www.theimpatientpodcast.com.au | i: @theimpatinentpodcastHosts: Nicole Cooper (@nicolecoopy) & Sean Crank (@seancrank) | Joined by: Dr Prasad Cooray of https://yarraoncology.com.auMusic: Dean Pratt (i: @dean.pratt)
Please note that the impatient podcast contains interviews with patients who share their experiences of the Australian health system, which include personal accounts of acute and chronic health conditions

Episode 03 - Do the Test

Our patient conversation this week is with Molly Clayton, who shares her very recent experience of finding - and eventually, being diagnosed with - breast cancer. Molly joins us from an emergency room to talk missed diagnoses, the power imbalance in medicine, and the simple act of just doing the test!
We then chat to Sarah Powell, CEO of cancer charity Pink Hope, for some real talk on the complexity of advocating for patients with cancers that the system largely believes won't and don't exist.
March 3 is Triple Negative Breast Cancer Day. TNBC is an aggressive breast cancer, more common in young women. TNBC doesn't share the main 'drivers' of other breast cancers, and is therefore not receptive to standard breast cancer treatments.
Another essential conversation. If you are a patient with a story, or a health professional who wants to join our system improvement discussion, please get in touch via our website!
www.theimpatientpodcast.com.au | i: @theimpatinentpodcastHosts: Nicole Cooper (@nicolecoopy) & Sean Crank (@seancrank)Guests: Molly Clayton; Sarah Powell @pinkhopeausMusic: Dean Pratt (i: @dean.pratt)
Please note that the impatient podcast contains interviews with patients who share their experiences of the Australian health system, which include personal accounts of acute and chronic health conditions