Twitter mourns educator Dr. Nadia Chaudhri. What can be learned from her story?

Dr. Nadia Chaudhri, a neuroscientist and professor, shared her experience with ovarian cancer on Twitter, showing how social media can be a powerful tool to connect and educate on chronic or serious illnesses.

Scrolling through Dr. Nadia Chaudhri’s Twitter feed, her more than 150,000 followers could see a small window of her life with terminal ovarian cancer: a sun-lit photo of her son eating a mango, a funny tweet about the heart-shaped sticker used to prevent bedsores, the much-retweeted thread from September chronicling her symptoms and eventual diagnosis. 

Chaudhri, a neuroscientist and professor at Concordia University in Canada, passed away last week at the age of 43, leaving behind a community inspired by her candid discussion of her experience with a terminal cancer diagnosis and her push to spread awareness so others could recognize their symptoms early.

“Know your bodies. Pay attention to fatigue and changes in bowel/urinary tract movements. Make sure you understand all the words on a medical report. Do not dismiss your pain or malaise. Find the expert doctors,” she wrote.