Medical Communication: From Theoretical Model To Practical Exploration. Tao Wang
technicians, formal medical institutions with medical qualifications, and medical graduates with high medical literacy. Medical undergraduates cannot be considered as separate transmitters because their medical knowledge is not comprehensive. This is also consistent with the fact that science popularization is usually dominated by frontline scientists.
Communicator is the cornerstone of all science communication. Communicator deviation will bring lessons to the communication abound. The “Zhang Wuben” incident is a typical case. Zhang Wuben claimed himself to be the “first person in Chinese medicine diet.” His published book Eating Back to Eat Out of the Disease has aroused widespread concern in the society. Especially in February 2010, after being a guest of Hunan Satellite TV’s “Bai Ke Quan Shuo,” its popularity increased rapidly. Zhang Wuben became the so-called “Traditional Chinese Medicine Master” throughout the country. He proclaimed the “Mung bean cures all diseases” rule, which even caused the price of mung beans to soar in the market. He disseminated his concepts very well. Later, some media reported that Zhang Wuben was suspected of academic fraud. His exaggerated concept of dietetic therapy was also questioned by experts. Everyone despised “Master Zhang” at that time. Hunan TV’s show was also stopped on June 7, 2010. The source of the farce is that Zhang Wuben is not a medical professional as he proclaimed. He was a laid-off worker from a textile factory. He became the so-called “the first batch of senior nutrition experts of the Ministry of Health”, even “the first person of traditional Chinese medicine diet therapy” through marketing. His various health concepts, including the “mung bean cures all diseases”, do not have a basic medical foundation. He has no basic medical knowledge. A “master” with no professional skills spread his concepts everywhere and caused widespread misdirection and bad impact on the public. It can be seen that the influence of subject deviation on the impact of communication can be devastating. When making medical communication, we must ensure the professionalism of the subject. The subject of communication is the basis of the communication.
Some people may question why medical communication must be based on professional medical staff and why the spread of medical or health knowledge by other personnel cannot be included in the scope of medical communication. Medicine is defined as the subject of dealing with various diseases or lesions of the human body by scientific or technical methods. It is an applied discipline of biology, an advanced science in the treatment of human diseases from anatomical and molecular genetic aspects and a system from prevention to treatment of diseases. The areas of medicine include basic medicine, clinical medicine, forensic science, laboratory medicine, preventive medicine, health medicine, rehabilitation medicine, and so forth. Objects of scientific research can be natural or other related fields. Therefore, a certain degree of deviation is allowed. However, the definition of medicine indicates that medicine is a vital area focused on research and dealing with body illness. Any deviation is not allowable during any therapy, otherwise the right to health even to life may be irreparably hurt. As we all know, a medical student has to go through a systematic and long theoretical study, a considerable period of internship and practice, finally to pass the theoretical and practical examination to be accepted as a real doctor. The training of nurses is also similar. They all take a long period. In the long term, through continuous theoretical and practical learning, medical personnel can grasp the necessary medical knowledge and skills, which cannot be replaced by nonprofessional medical personnel’s internet search. Medical communication faces the ordinary public. The right of citizens to live and to be healthy is indispensable. If the communicator does not have the necessary medical knowledge, what he disseminates to people is likely to be wrong or even harmful, which may cause immeasurable danger. This is why we must position the communicator of medical communication to professional medical staff. Only professionally trained medical staff can ensure the reliability and authenticity of the communication content so as to minimize the possibility of incorrect medical knowledge dissemination.
In the past, professional medical staff rarely participated in health knowledge popularization or medical communication. The motivation of professional medical staff to disseminate medical knowledge was often based on personal enthusiasm and social responsibility. The lack of relevant incentive mechanism results in the weak sustainability of medical communication. Many medical staff do not pay attention to medical communication and they even think doctors who devote to such jobs are performing unnecessary work. Also, in the assessment of medical personnel at all levels of medical institutions, there is no assessment mechanism for medical communication or medical popularization. Writing ten popular science articles is thought to be less valuable than publishing one journal paper. It is no wonder that Bai Yansong, a member of the national committee of CPPCC and a famous host, appealed that “Medical science popularization work should be included in the business scope of medical workers and medical researchers. Otherwise, it will be difficult to meet the needs of social science.” Fortunately, the community has noticed the problem. Shanxi Health and Family Planning Commission has taken the lead to include popular science articles as review criterion in the 2017 annual health care evaluation of senior professional and technical positions. The status of popular science articles has been upgraded to the same as that of academic papers, which encouraged more and more medical staff to invest in health education and medical science popularization. Benefiting from the incentive mechanism, medical staff have more strength in medical science popularization. The establishment and development of medical communication has made the best footnote for the communicator status of professional medical staff.
Second, spread to whom?
Broadly speaking, the audience of medical communication includes two parts: the medical and the nonmedical. The internal medical communication is the communication between professionals, usually in the path of the academic community such as journals, conferences, seminars, which will not be covered here. Medical communication pays more attention to the dissemination toward the nonmedical people. Thus, the general public constitutes the object of medical communication. The audience is made up of several groups, which according to the difference in health status, include patients, patients’ relatives and friends, susceptible population, and ordinary crowd. Taking diabetes as an example, the audience includes diabetic patients themselves (patients), all relatives and friends of the diabetic patients (relatives and friends of patients), those with diabetes mellitus or body fatness in their families (susceptible population), and people who do not have diabetes or diabetes risk factors (ordinary crowd). Due to the possible genetic effects of diabetes, dietary habits, lifestyle behaviors, and other factors on diabetes, the medical communication to the abovementioned population is indispensable.
Some people may not understand why there are so many objects of medical communication and they may consider it necessary only for patients but not the healthy. However, the reality is more complicated. A person is a unit with social attributes. In the process of resisting disease, it is not enough to rely on the patients to take care of themselves. Help from surrounding groups, including family and friends, becomes more and more necessary. For example, a stroke patient who has a side limb hemiplegia cannot take care of himself even though he has consciousness. Under such circumstances, it is useless to spread the knowledge of how to maintain and care after hemiplegia to the patient himself. These goals cannot be achieved without the help of family members, friends, or nursing staff. Those who care for the patients are the targets of the dissemination of medical knowledge.
There are three levels of prevention: primary, secondary, and tertiary.
Primary prevention, also called cause prevention, is to prevent the onset of illness or injury before disease process begins. Take diabetes as an example. The target of primary prevention is those who are obese, fond of high-calorie diet, lacking exercise, with family history, or other high-risk factors. Primary prevention is the advice about how to eat healthily, how to exercise and control weight to reduce the risk of diabetes.
Secondary prevention, known as “three early” prevention, is the main measure to prevent the progression of the disease and the spread of illness, and to slow down the disease progression. It refers to early diagnosis and prompt treatment of a disease, illness, or injury to prevent more severe problems developing. Also taking diabetes as an example, secondary prevention is for those who may have diabetes. We hope to identify, diagnose, and treat diabetes in the early stages by screening and regular blood glucose measurement.
Tertiary