Читать книгу Medical Communication: From Theoretical Model To Practical Exploration - Tao Wang - Страница 13

Although in the second section, we discussed the evolution of traditional science communication and explained the three paradigms of traditional science, the fact is that the current scientific communication field in China is still not perfect, so the Deficit Model based on the Public Understanding of Science Paradigm is often the easiest to get policy support and practice. An important reason for this phenomenon is that the science communicators are keen on citizen participation, but the public lack interest in those scientific issues. This shows that we cannot simply put the principles of democratic politics into the field of scientific communication. For example, the energy crisis is a good scientific topic, but the public have limited interest in it. For the public, as long as there is enough gasoline to fuel their cars, they are not as much concerned about the amount of oil left in the world, or whether there is a new energy source to be developed, or what benefits new energy sources can bring to us. Because of the lack of direct relationship, the public will not concern a lot or actively involve themselves.

Unlike general scientific topics, medical and health-related topics are associated with natural public engagement attributes because they are relevant to everyone. From birth to death, people will be inseparable from medical and health-related topics. Starting from how to do prenatal checkups to how to screen congenital diseases of the fetus, from how to take maternal care to analyze the benefits of taking natural labor and to distinguish which women need a C-section, these prebirth topics are closely related to every couple. And then, there are topics such as follows: how to observe postnatal conditions, how to urge and feed milk, how to decide to feed breast milk or milk powder, how to feed the babies scientifically, how to screen for neonatal diseases, how to bathe newborns, which vaccines are needed and how and where to get them, how to check the nutritional development indicators of children, and how to prevent some common infectious diseases in children. These above-mentioned topics are closely relevant to the puerperal and the newborn. And then in puberty, topics critical to teenagers range from how to guide boys and girls with targeted sexual development counseling to how to smooth through puberty emotional instability, from how to avoid myopia to how to avoid obesity. In adulthood, topics critical to people at the prime of life can be from how to get regular physical examinations to how to develop healthy and beneficial diet and living habits, and how to save oneself when encountering emergencies. When coming to the old age, knowledge from how to screen for common old-age diseases to how to maintain health, from how to exercise properly to how to cultivate good mood, from how to look at death correctly to how to look at the death of a family member, and so on are closely related to the later life of people.

People’s whole life is inseparable from medical and health topics, while the public are eager to know all kinds of medical information related to themselves and their families. A person may be apathetic to the latest developments in high-energy physics, but he will always pay attention to the physical and mental health problems of himself and his family. Once a person is sick, he will concern about and consult various medical information including national health insurance–related policies and medical-related regulations and use various communication channels to seek medical information. On July 21, 2015, the Chinese Association of Science and Technology and Baidu held a “Kop China and Baidu” strategic cooperation launch event in Beijing. The two sides jointly released the first “China internet users’ popular search behavior report.” The report shows that in the first quarter of 2015, searches on popular topics related to health and health care accounted for 57% of all search needs. It can be inferred that medical communication has received widespread attention. Therefore, in the course of the dissemination of medical and health issues, citizens will be more active to participate through various ways and to engage in active dialogue with the medical community, and ultimately a scientific culture conducive to both sides could be created.

The subject of medical communication is medical staff who shoulders the mission of curing sickness and saving patients, which allows them to accurately identify groups that need medical communication and keep track of them. This may be the so-called “precision communication”. For those patients who are obese, having high blood pressure or diabetes, medical staff are more likely to prevent the spread and tracking of cardiovascular disease because they are at high risk of cardiovascular disease. For patients with a family history of tumors, medical staff will do more about tumor prevention and screening since their prevalence of tumor is several times higher than in the general population. In the field of medicine, precision medicine is currently promoted. Precision medicine refers to emerging approaches to disease prevention and treatment that take into account an individual’s genes, environment, and lifestyle. Similarly, in the field of medical communication, precise medical communication is also required. Precision medical communication is a personalized medical communication that combines an individual’s family background, family history, living and eating habits, working environment, and so on. Only precise medical communication can achieve the greatest benefit of the audience. Suppose there are two middle-aged men. They are similar in age, live near to each other, have the same nature of work and similar levels of obesity; meanwhile, both of them usually lack exercise, like desserts and meat, and both like smoking. One has a family history of colorectal cancer, and the other doesn’t. When coming to the analysis of the situation from the perspective of medical communication, these two men both have bad habits and diets and lack of exercise, and they are high-risk populations of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. Because the former has a family history of colorectal cancer, he is also a high-risk group for colorectal cancer. The medical communication for these two men is about the need to have healthy life, diet, and behavior; scientific weight loss methods; and regular screening of cardiovascular disease. The former also needs to be educated to receive regular colorectal cancer screening to have early detection and early treatment, which may not be needed for the latter. This proves that medical communication must be carried out by medical professionals since only professionals can judge the risk factors for different diseases. Then precise medical communication will be provided. The general public does not have such ability.

Medical communication is aimed at people with urgent health needs, such as patients, family members, and sub-healthy people; they are the core of direct contact with medical information. In addition to their own access to useful medical information, they can also radiate it to their loved ones and friends. The information may be disseminated on other issues such as health needs and health systems. Of course, throughout the communication process, professional medical staff are opinion leaders in medical communication and have an important role in leading emotions, spreading issues, and organizing actions. In this form, the transmission and radiation of information belong to the form of interpersonal transmission, but this kind of human-to-human transmission is not a single layer-to-layer transmission. Because a single layer of communication cannot guarantee the accuracy of the content of the communication, loss or even errors are possible in the communication. Interpersonal communication in medical communication does not advocate too many levels of human-to-human communication. Medical communication should be organized and regulated. The person who organizes and supervises is a member of professional medical staff. In the field of medical communication, the subject of communication and the content of transmission are more important than the widespread nature of dissemination. In other words, medical communication pays more attention to the connotation and quality of transmission than to the breadth of transmission. What is needed for medical communication is to pass on medical knowledge to all by medical personnel. The process can be long. To widen the range of spread, more medical personnel are needed to participate or to use more effective means of communication rather than spreading quickly through word-of-mouth in the crowd.

For these reasons, we believe that it is not possible to simply categorize medical communication into the context of scientific communication and fully follow the paradigm of general scientific communication. Medical communication has natural public participation attributes, so we suggest that in practice and theoretical construction, medical communication and general scientific communication should be distinguished.