About Jen Singer
Shortly after I was diagnosed with heart failure in 2020, I joined an online support group. Every once in a while, a newly diagnosed patient would post in a panic about the outdated survival stats "Dr. Google" had offered up.
The patient had done what we all do when we’re just diagnosed: Googled it. But if you Google “heart failure,” you’ll find scary stats and alarming charts that don’t take into consideration your personal prognosis, recent advances in medications and heart devices, or the cause of your condition. And if you put it into AI, it'll do it super fast and with "hallucinations" that are flat out wrong.
When I Googled “heart failure” after my diagnosis, I landed on a page I’d written five years earlier as a medical writer for one of New York City’s most prestigious hospitals. I already knew how to decipher survival statistics, how to wade through medical research papers, and how to translate all the “medicalese.”
I thought it would be a great service to new patients if I took my expertise as a medical writer and married it to my extensive experience as a patient – I am also a cancer and complete heart block survivor – and filtered out the scary and confusing information that “Dr. Google” tends to provide.
So, I did. I wrote a series of ebooks, adding some humor and lots of empathy, for anyone who’s just diagnosed.
Being a patient is scary – I know. But now you can find out what you really need to know when you’re just diagnosed without Googling a thing.
BIO
Jen Singer has survived cancer, a complete heart block, and heart failure. For years, she was a medical writer for some of New York City’s most prestigious hospitals. When she’s not working as a ghostwriter and developmental editor, she writes patient-friendly ebooks called “The Just Diagnosed Guides” to provide the newly diagnosed with the information they really need to know now. On social media, she's working to take the loneliness out of being sick. She lives at the Jersey Shore (the place, not the TV show).
