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Playing Favorites
If you’re a parent, you know you’ve been asked this question: Which of your children is your favorite? Of course, there’s no way to answer that question! Because even if you have a favorite, you’d never fess up! As a parent, you do your utmost to be fair and equitable…. (We all know who our OWN parents’ favorite child is/was. My sister was my mother’s favorite. She was sweet, and quiet, and well behaved. And I was… well… not.) This week I was contacted with two different requests for referrals to APHA members, which means I am expected to pick favorites…. It occurred to me that perhaps you’d like to know how I handle the “I don’t have a favorite advocate” response…. The first was a contact from the media. A specific question that could be answered by a patient advocate or navigator, a general question that would then be highlighted in a publication… So how would I choose the best person for the reporter to contect? Which of our 400+ members of the Alliance of Professional Health Advocates would I “anoint” as the person to get some publicity? The second was a request from a colleague – Christina deMoraes of the International Medical Tourism Chamber of Commerce was looking for an advocate to work with a patient coming from outside the US to Orlando. Could I recommend who she should contact? Ho-boy. You know, in both cases (and in all the other opportunities that come along this way) it’s tough! Because we have many members I have met and have gotten to know – and many I don’t. Yet, I need to be fair to one and all. So here’s how I handle these kinds of cases, just so you know: In the case of the request for an advocate to answer a question for the media: This one is pretty straightforward. I find the advocate in our roster who lives and works in the closest proximity to the media. In this case the request came in from a Worcester, Massachusetts publication, and so our advocate who lives and…