Jessie Gruman

Who is Jessie Gruman?

Jessie Gruman is active in the movement to incorporate evidence into health care and to help consumers adopt healthier behaviors. Gruman is the founder and president of the Washington-based Center for Advancing Health. She is the author of AfterShock: What to Do When the Doctor Gives You -- or Someone You Love -- a Devastating Diagnosis.. She lives in New York City.

She is a three time cancer survivor: at 20 she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, at 30 she developed cervical cancer, and at 50 she developed colon cancer. She used her personal and academic background to understand how people respond to serious illness.

Gruman interviewed 200 patients and families about how they used scientific information after devastating medical diagnoses. In a keynote address, she said, "I fear that the trend toward consumer-driven health care will disproportionately damage the health of the less educated and less wealthy, and that the net effect on the nation's health has already proved negative." She concluded that most patients are unable to make critical decisions about their health care in the consumer-driven model. Some people, called "monitors," track down detailed information, while other people, called "blunters," don't want information. One blunter, a theoretical physicist, said he would be "insulted" if someone read 15 papers on theoretical physics and asked him to help design an experiment; he pays his doctor to explain his choices. A "monitor," a lawyer, applied her legal research skills but couldn't think clearly enough to decide. People turn to the Internet, become overwhelmed, or don't understand the significance of the information. "Most health information is bad news," is stressful, and makes decisions even more difficult.