Presentations & Creative Communications
“Put her in front of people, let her open her mouth, and watch what happens.”
—John Santa, MD, MPH, former Director, Health Ratings Center, Consumer Reports Health
I am not a professional speaker.
In my early days as a patient advocate, I delivered a TEDx Talk on how patients were using social media to form their own support networks.
In the years that followed I became the prime presenter nationally on a patient perspective of OpenNotes—being privileged to serve as invited speaker at numerous national and international conferences, CME-eligible events, and at academic grand rounds.
Today, I draw on these same patient experiences with social media as methods to evaluate patient and care partner needs and community sentiment in research co-design.
Photo: Liz Salmi at UC San Diego School of Medicine Grand Rounds in 2018. Credit: Chris Longhurst, MD
Notable Videos & Presentations
Breakthroughs Ahead:
Liz Salmi’s Story
December 2022
My husband Brett and I have been living with my grade 2 astrocytoma diagnosis for 15 years. Watch this video and learn how our experiences have led us to champion research with National Brain Tumor Society.
Pushing the Boundaries of Surgery:
Awake Brain Mapping Techniques
August 2021
In this presentation for the American Brain Tumor Association, I join Shawn Hervey-Jumper, MD, of the University of California San Francisco, for his presentation on awake brain mapping techniques. As Shawn’s patient I was able to share what the awake surgery experience is like from my POV. This story became the basis for a perspective I published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Engagement Town Hall: Building Stakeholder Capacity with Technical Content
April 2021
This presentation was part of a series presented by the PCORnet Engagement Coordinating Center to share promising stakeholder engagement practices focused on building stakeholder capacity to engage around highly technical healthcare topics in research. Myself and other panelists discussed effective tools and strategies for engaging stakeholders in research data and methodology topics, and their own experiences with this type of engagement from a researcher and patient/researcher perspective.
The OPTIMUM Study
October 2021
In this video for the National Cancer Institute, I describe the role of patients as research partners in the NCI-funded study: Optimizing Engagement in Discovery of Molecular Evolution of Low Grade Glioma (OPTIMUM).
Blurred Lines & Flattened Hierarchies:
Evolution of Patient Stakeholders to Investigators
September 2020
“In this presentation, Liz Salmi will walk you through her path as a curious patient and how a chance encounter with PCORI challenged her assumptions of what she was capable of contributing as an engaged collaborator, all of which inspired her to get involved in research and take up a role as co-investigator.”
For this presentation (age 40) I was invited to share my origin story as an emerging patient-researcher… and how a series of events (or chances) got me to where I am today.
Liz Salmi: NCQA Quality Talks
October 2018
“At an age when her peers were in school, Liz Salmi was touring the country as the drummer in a punk rock band. When others her age were launching careers and starting families, she was confronting a life-threatening illness. She approached that illness with a curiosity and creativity that has put her at the forefront of a social movement that makes patients participants in their own care.”
I delivered this talk (age 39) to an audience of influential people working in healthcare policy in Washington, D.C. As a result of this presentation, James K. Gilman, MD, Chief of the NCI Clinical Center, switched all patients receiving caring at the NIH to open progress notes—so research subjects had full access to the information in their NIH medical records.
Liz Salmi: Ignite Talk, Stanford Medicine X
September 2016
“Patient advocate Liz Salmi discusses her experiences living with a brain tumor diagnosis and how her family history with the disease has informed her decisions. This talk is preceded by a film on Liz's efforts to share information.”
I delivered this talk (age 37) when I was still learning about the world of patient-partnered research and had never been a named investigator.
Documentary: The Open Patient
June 2016
"The Open Patient tells the story of two brain cancer patients who, by accessing and sharing their medical data, are turning their crises into a movement for open healthcare data standards.”
I appeared in this short documentary (age 36) soon after learning about the world of patient access to medical records. This film connected me with the team at OpenNotes, and the rest is history.
Liz Salmi at TEDxSacramento
June 2013
“Liz began blogging about her brain cancer experience immediately after diagnosis. TheLizArmy.com now receives more than 30,000 visitors each year, and Liz is using social media to connect with the brain tumor community around the world.”
I delivered this talk (age 33) prior to any direct exposure to the world of research and academic medicine. This talk captures a specific moment in time (early 2010s) when people (both clinicians and patients) are just starting to use social media in a robust and strategic way to share and teach from their own lived healthcare experiences.
creative health care communications
I am at my happiest working on health care communications initiatives where I use my own voice and can truly be me.
#scicomm
Tutorial 📹
How to report medical record information blocking: Step-by-step instructions
In this video I explain how to report “medical record information blocking” using the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services online reporting tool. WhereIsMyMedicalRecord.org was designed to help people navigate the Information Blocking Portal managed by the U.S. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, and is an initiative coordinated by OpenNotes, with assistance from Ciitizen.
The style and delivery of this video is inspired by YouTubers who design and create custom “how to-s” on the Internet—the free educators in our modern world.
Tutorial 📹
What is Epic's Share Everywhere, and how should patients use it?
After a personal deep dive into the "Share Everywhere" feature in Epic’s MyChart, I realized Epic (and their customers) never created a tutorial for patients. So I did it myself.
Can you share your medical records with anyone, anywhere? Find out from me. Note: This video is not endorsed by Epic, or anyone, other than me.
Salmi, L., 2020. What Is Epic's Share Everywhere, And How Should Patients Use It?. [video] Available at: https://youtu.be/qd9gPZYBXKA [Accessed 27 January 2020]
Top 10 video Abstract 📹
Flipping Clinical Documentation on Its Head, #AMIA2019
The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) put out a call for video abstracts to promote sessions at the 2019 annual conference. Our session, “Flipping Clinical Documentation on its Head,” was already creatively named (as far as medical conferences are concerned), so I proposed an over-the-top video to help our session standout. The abstract received more than 19,000 impressions on Twitter that fall and it was voted a Top 10 abstract. And yes, people attended the session.
Salmi, L., Kumah-Crystal, Y., Sarabu, C., et al., 2019. Video Abstract: S05 Flipping Clinical Documentation on its Head (#AMIA2019). [video] Available at: https://youtu.be/afUMf9kL34k [Accessed 12 September 2020]