In music, harmony is when three separate notes that agree with one another come together to create a chord. To make beautiful music, you need to understand more than how to play a single instrument, you must understand and make sense of what other musicians are doing. The music you listen to affects your thought process and work product; listen to great music, in a variety of styles, and you will cultivate great musical instincts. It’s the combination of influences, training, inspiration, and instinct that allows one to compose beautiful music.

Much like a great composer, the Bateman Horne Center brings together a variety of distinct expertise that complement one another to compose beautiful progress for the ME/CFS and FM community.

Distinctive Leadership: Dr. Bateman – Dr. Vernon – Volunteer Leadership

BHC has a unique and diverse leadership model. Building on Dr. Bateman’s innate collaborative spirit and true heart for real progress for patients, it is the combination of a hands-on physician, an in-the-lab research team, and patient/care-partner volunteer leadership that is driving unique discoveries and inventive collaborations.

Complimenting Priorities: Empowering Patients – Advancing Research – Improving Care

Dr. Bateman has dedicated her clinic and her career to compassionate, comprehensive and well-informed care for patients. ME/CFS and FM are not well taught in medical schools leading many healthcare providers to deliver sub-par care. Beyond her own clinic walls, she works to improve the national conversation around and comprehension of ME/CFS and FM.

BHC puts the patients at the center, endowing them with helpful and informed information, creating opportunities for their voices to be heard and amplified in a positive way. We engage patients at every level of progress, knowing we can only find the solutions with their direct involvement.

Dr. Vernon has dedicated her career to tearing down the silos that exist among researchers, collaborating with a wide variety of unparalleled scientists in the quest for answers. We can identify the core signs and symptoms, biomarkers and diagnostic tests in our lifetime by building a collaborative army of investigators and patients engaged in the process.

Diverse Collaborations

In addition to leading out on its own innovative research, BHC works with investigators from across the spectrum, partnering with multiple disciplines on a variety of studies. Collaborators need high-quality, well-qualified patients and patient samples. BHC is able to connect patients to researchers in record time, speeding progress and improving results.

Dr. Bateman routinely leverages her expertise to have a positive impact. She invests her time and talent to efforts like the IOM Committee and resultant report that declared ME/CFS is a serious, chronic, complex, systemic disease that profoundly affects the lives patients. She routinely invests in continuing education for medical providers, local and federal, imparting her knowledge, compassion and heartfelt care for the patients.

At BHC the culture is one of collaboration and commitment to progress. We know that the best answers – real solutions – can come from anywhere. We celebrate every time someone new joins the “army” and will actively collaborate with any and all individuals, advocates, researchers and organizations pressing on toward solutions.

We are at a tipping point and real progress is being made. BHC fills a distinct and important role in the ME/CFS and FM world, squarely targeted on bringing these diseases to the mainstream. We are targeting the development of standardized diagnostic tests and evidence based treatments to improve the lives of millions of sufferers. In order for research targeting treatments and cures to be successful, this first step – identifying biomarkers to improve diagnosis – is paramount.

How can you play a part? Just as a symphony involves many musicians each playing their own instrument in order to create beautiful music, we all have something to contribute:

• Engage in the research – if you have ever been seen by Dr. Bateman, or have a well-qualified diagnosis from your local physician, join our Research Ready Army
• Join BHC as a monthly donor, providing the consistent support needed to maintain progress
• Become a one-time donor, understanding that every gift of any size matters
• Be an ambassador, activist or change-maker:
  • Follow us on social media and frequently share our information with your circles
  • Subscribe to our e-news, the Empower Update, and forward it to family and friends who may be interested
  • Lift your voice and tell your story – through the BHC Patient Voice, as an active member of #MEAction, or through your own blog and social media channels
  • Sock it to ME/CFS and FM – along with Dr. Bateman, vow to wear wild and wacky socks until biomarkers are found. At your niece’s wedding, your son’s graduation, to work, to the park, to your next Dr. appointment – wear the craziest socks you can find. When people comment, tell them why you are wearing them. Take pictures and share on social media with the hashtag #SockItToMECFSandFM. Send your picture to us and we’ll add it to our gallery.

For too long, the music of ME/CFS and FM has been diminished. We want to build a crescendo – usher in a new day where we are singing loudly; each with their own distinct note, but in harmony. Add your voice to the chorus and together we can see a world where ME/CFS and FM are readily diagnosed, effectively treated and widely met with empathy and understanding.