Medical Communication: From Theoretical Model To Practical Exploration. Tao Wang
of fans, and their published medical information covers a wide range of concerns.
However, Social Media platform has also become a problematic area of medical false information and rumors. A variety of false information under the banner of health has brought harm to the health and property of the people. The wide spread of healthcare information and the dissemination of health knowledge are far from each other. This so-called healthy communication is the rise of packaging for health information content marketing. Many Social Media health care platforms are not supported by professional medical personnel and the quality of communication content cannot be guaranteed, which is contrary to the concept of medical communication. Medical communication through the media platform should be rigorous and deliver accurate medical knowledge, rather than sensational and having profitable effects that are required in the general sense of the media platform. From the position of the communicator of medical communication, the lack of professional medical personnel to support Social Media communication cannot be regarded as a true medical communication, but a pseudo-propagation. Moreover, if there is no regulatory platform, the dissemination of some false medical content is extremely harmful to the public. The Wei Zexi incident illustrated this problem. Wei Zexi (1994–2016) was a 21-year-old Chinese college student who died of cancer after receiving questionable treatment from a hospital that advertised via the search engine. Wei Zexi was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma, a rare form of cancer. When his family were told that there was little hope of treatment in regular tumor hospitals, his family members found a hospital through the online search engine. The hospital claimed to have very advanced bio-immunotherapy that can cure the disease, but it was more expensive. As a result, the family used this unofficially approved bio-immunotherapy and repeatedly sought treatment at the hospital four times. Finally, after running out of all the savings, Wei Zexi died. The general public cannot always identify correct medical information. If the network platform for medical communication cannot be strictly supervised, and there is no support for medical personnel behind the scenes, it may bring a devastating blow to those who cannot identify correct information. Therefore, regardless of the way of communication, the communicator of communication and the content of communication are very important in medical communication. Only by identifying the subject of the communication and the content of the communication can the preparation and reliability of the communication be ensured.
It is worth noticing that communication skill is a very important part in the way of communication. Experienced and skilled doctors are not necessarily good medical communicators. The usual case is that when the experts are having an impassioned speech on the stage, the audience sleep with no attention left. This may be related to communication skills and modes of communication. As mentioned earlier, the dissemination of the fake doctor Zhang Wuben proved to be pseudo-science and pseudo-medicine, but his communication skills can be used for reference. He caught the attention of the people and adopted the appropriate methods and techniques to make his ideas quickly promoted. While as the communicator of medical communication, it is easy for the professional medical staff to forget that the audience of communication are not peers with medical knowledge, but citizens who have no medical foundation. Medical staff often use very professional terminologies when speaking to the public. These contents may benefit their peers, but they may be too difficult for citizens. Therefore, we should use words that are easier to understand and use appropriate metaphors to achieve better results. For example, when we spread cardiovascular and cerebrovascular knowledge to people, we may tell them the illness they need to prevent is “cerebral apoplexy,” which could not be understood by public. When it is switched to the word “stroke,” it will be easy to understand. For another example, the World Health Organization and our Chinese residents’ dietary guidelines require no more than 6 g of salt per day. If we only tell the public that the salt intake cannot exceed 6 g, it is difficult for them to implement. Because when cooking, the public generally do not take the scale to weigh the amount of salt. If the communicator changes the way, telling the public which foods or condiments contain invisible salt, and how to reduce the intake of salt, the effect of such communication will signally increase. Sometimes, it is necessary to have a certain touch on the subject of medical communication. For two books that have the same content, the one named 80 Days to Become Nursing Master is obviously more acceptable to the general public than the other one named Family Nursing Knowledge, since the latter one looks too professional for layman to understand. This can be inferred that proper communication skills have a positive effect on medical communication. Medical communication cares not only about how much reading is available, or how many people pay attention, but also the scientific and normative of medical communication. In order to communicate medical knowledge to a wider population in a common and easy-to-understand way, certain skills are needed.
At present, the new media form has moved toward the Omnimedia and Media Convergence. The various media forms such as radios, TVs, phototapes and videotapes, films, publications, newspapers, magazines, and websites are highly integrated. Due to the high development of the media, we have entered an era of “everyone communicates, everything is media”. The channels of communication are extremely prosperous and complicated. These channels are what medical communication needs to study. Meanwhile, we should keep in mind that good-quality content is primarily important.
Fifth, what effect does the communication have?
First of all, medical communication is based on scientificity and propagation as two major evaluation indicators.
The aim of medical communication is to popularize medical knowledge to the public. The effect of communication is determined not just by the number of the audience. What is really important includes whether through the communication health indicators are improved, healthy living behaviors are formed, information gaps between doctors and patients are closed, and whether as much as possible the ultimate goal of rational allocation of medical resources is achieved. The first-aid reality-show documentary “Emergency Room Story” filmed by Dragon TV, is the first program to use the fixed camera shooting method, shooting the story of the hospital emergency room in every respect, combining the plot and humanities, with expert interpretation. After the program was broadcasted, many viewers commented “touching” and “understand the doctors.” The patient complaint rate in the emergency department of the hospital dropped significantly. This is due to the documentary filming method, which allows the audience to jump out of their medical experience, reexamine the doctor–patient relationship from an objective perspective, realizing mutual trust between people and promoting positive energy. The scientificity is reflected in not only the content but also the topic. The selection of topics is based on time, region, target population or specific public health events, and so on. Take the target population as an example. It is inappropriate to popularize the prevention and treatment of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and hyperglycemia among primary and middle school students because the students are not at high risk for these diseases. Considering that students are in the stage of growth and their studies are heavy, “How to prevent myopia,” “How to get nutrition,” “How to prevent obesity,” and “How to get through adolescence” are suitable topics of medical communication. As for region, it is very ridiculous to popularize how to save yourself and save others when the tsunami comes in Sichuan Province. Sichuan is a basin with high incidence of earthquakes, while the ocean is much far from there. There have been many earthquakes in history, such as the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, which is still remembered by people. In Sichuan Province, how to save yourself and save others when the earthquake comes is a good topic and the audience is very broad. Take time as an example. The incidence of various diseases varies from time to time. Summer is the season of high incidence of infectious diseases of digestive tract, whereas winter is the season of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. Medical communication should be timely. If you popularize “heatstroke prevention” in the winter and “prevent frostbite” in the summer, the audience will be rare. When the order is interchanged, it will have a good effect. Taking time as an example, from last winter to this spring, the flu broke out all over the country. At one time, the respiratory, infectious, and pediatric departments of major hospitals were overcrowded. At this time, many medical staff and the media began to give lectures on how to prevent the flu and how to treat the flu. These lectures have received widespread attention. Meanwhile they have played positive roles in the ultimate control of the flu pandemic.
In addition to the