An update from You Can Know Things
When I started this newsletter over four years ago as a PhD student, I remember naively thinking "the pandemic is only going to last a few months... I'll do this blog for a little while, but there probably won't be much to write about after that."
Turns out COVID lasted a bit longer than the summer, and I'm still here (now done with the PhD, the MD, and half way through residency). With changes in national health leadership coming, there will be a lot to write about, and independent sources of health information are going to be more critical than ever.
To prepare for the next few years, a few transitions for You Can Know Things are in the works; here's a quick update.
A new website!
After years of fighting with Wordpress (a powerful but cumbersome tool), I have switched this website over to Ghost, an open-source web platform, which is much easier to use. I'm hopeful this will help me share content more quickly. Bear with me as I work out any bugs, and send me an email at kristen@youcanknowthings.com if you notice any issues.
Financial support is changing
Thank you so much to everyone who has been supporting on Buy Me A Coffee. These funds have helped tremendously in offsetting the financial cost of running this website. Ghost has a built in feature for financial support, so moving forward I will be transitioning all financial support to this site.
- If you have been a financial contributor on Buy Me A Coffee, expect an email from me in the coming weeks to coordinate the transition (if you would like to!)
- If you would like to start contributing, you can do so here:
I'm on Substack
Last year, I started a collaboration with Dr. Katelyn Jetelina writing the Health (mis)communication column for Your Local Epidemiologist. Due to challenges with Wordpress, I've not shared much of that content here, but moving forward I'm going to be sharing more content in both places. If you'd like to follow along on Substack, you can:
What's coming next
You Can Know Things was born out the need to address false health information and rumors during the pandemic. And that’s still the core of what I do.
But, health information now is even more complicated than it was in March 2020. Trust in science and institutional sources of information has taken a huge hit. Health communication is not only about explaining data and spreading factual information — more and more it’s about how we communicate and what we should and shouldn’t do to rebuild trust.
So this newsletter will be a mix… sometimes it will explain why the latest health or science rumor isn’t accurate, sometimes it will be tips to communicate science better, and sometimes it will be reflections from residency and things I think every ER patient should know. And every now and then it will be about the struggles of our overburdened healthcare system.
There will be a lot to write about in the coming years. We need more independent, free sources of health information that communicate with both accuracy and compassion. That's what this site aims to do.
Thank you for being here.
KP
Kristen Panthagani, MD, PhD, is a resident physician and Yale Emergency Scholar, completing a combined Emergency Medicine residency and research fellowship focusing on health literacy and communication. In her free time, she is the creator of the medical blog You Can Know Things and author of Your Local Epidemiologist’s section on Health (Mis)communication. You can find her on Instagram, Bluesky, Substack, or subscribe to her website here. Views expressed belong to KP, not her employer.
