Sunnquist, Madison, Nicholson, Laura, Jason, Leonard A et al. · Modern clinical medicine research · 2017 · DOI
This study asked nearly 900 people with ME/CFS about their experiences finding and receiving medical care. The researchers found that less than half had ever seen a doctor who specializes in ME/CFS, even though almost everyone wanted to. The biggest obstacles were distance to specialists and cost, and patients were much happier with care from ME/CFS specialists than from doctors who didn't specialize in these conditions.
This study provides empirical evidence for a significant unmet healthcare need in the ME/CFS population and supports the case for creating specialized care centers. By documenting both barriers to access and the superior outcomes associated with specialist care, it justifies policy and resource allocation decisions to improve medical support for this underserved patient population.
This study does not prove that Centers of Excellence, if created, would definitively solve access problems or improve patient outcomes—it only demonstrates current barriers and the preference for specialist care. As a cross-sectional survey, it cannot establish causation between specialist care quality and improved health outcomes, only association. The study does not measure what long-term health impacts result from improved access to specialist care.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Sunnquist, Madison, Nicholson, Laura, Jason, Leonard A, & Friedman, Kenneth J (2017). Access to Medical Care for Individuals with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Call for Centers of Excellence.. Modern clinical medicine research. https://doi.org/10.22606/mcmr.2017.11005
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-sunnquist-2017-access-medical,
author = {Sunnquist, Madison and Nicholson, Laura and Jason, Leonard A and Friedman, Kenneth J},
title = {Access to Medical Care for Individuals with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Call for Centers of Excellence.},
journal = {Modern clinical medicine research},
year = {2017},
doi = {10.22606/mcmr.2017.11005},
note = {PubMed: 28713878},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/sunnquist-2017-access-medical},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/sunnquist-2017-access-medical
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