Tan Xianjie, Chief Physician of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, talks about health science——
The "Four Nos" Principles of Health Science Popularization in the Internet Age (Big Health Observation)
The 13th Healthy China Annual Forum hosted by the People's Daily Health Client and Health Times was held in Beijing a few days ago.
With the theme of "New Opportunities, New Formats and New Trends", this forum set up 3 main forums and 17 parallel forums.
In the special forum of "Health Science Popularization: Building a New Internet Communication Ecology", Tan Xianjie, chief physician of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department of Peking Union Medical College Hospital, shared his experience in medical science popularization.
He believes that the purpose of medical science popularization is to teach the public how to detect diseases early and effectively prevent them, and that the diagnosis and treatment of diseases still have to go back to the hospital and let professional doctors make the diagnosis.
Pay attention to the limitations and uncertainties of communication medicine
In Tan Xianjie's view, the current medical science popularization has the following problems.
It only emphasizes the advanced and scientific nature of medicine, and does not pay attention to the limitations and uncertainties of dissemination of medicine.
"Some medical sciences have shaped doctors into rejuvenating gods, making the public feel that doctors are omnipotent." Tan Xianjie said that if patients develop this kind of recognition, when the doctors fail to achieve the patient's treatment goals or expectations, the patients will be greatly disappointed. The contradiction between doctors and patients also arises from this.
It only pays attention to scientific knowledge and conclusions, and does not pay attention to the process, thinking and methods of disseminating scientific discoveries.
"We only care about'bring it', which is not conducive to innovation." Tan Xianjie gave an example. When he was doing cervical cancer vaccine science popularization, he spent a lot of time telling the story behind the vaccine. The story of the gradual recognition of recognized theories, it tells us that the road of scientific development is tortuous and that the discovery of truth has to go through hardships. Such scientific thought, spirit, and methods are also important contents of popular science."
Only seeing the disease itself, ignoring the people behind the disease.
"The target of our science popularization is people, and every disease story or disease description is followed by a living person." Tan Xianjie said that doctors should consider the feelings of patients. "I have a popular science article that says that human papilloma virus is usually caused by men and women. Sexual transmission is carried out, but it cannot be said with absolute certainty. Because sometimes it is true that the patient did not know how the patient was infected, such as contact with unsanitary sanitary ware and supplies. If it is too absolute, such popular science may be broken up. Other people’s happy families, and this is not our intention."
"At the same time, medical science cannot scare the public, and cannot describe rare incidents as very common, such as amniotic fluid embolism, which scares some people from having children. This is not the purpose of our science popularization." Tan Xianjie said, science is required. Emphasize the rarity of such incidents and tell the public that there is a high probability that such a situation will not happen.
In the Internet age, some new problems have emerged in medical science popularization.
"Under the trend of fragmentation, decentralization, omission, and fast food, sometimes we do not explain thoroughly or continuously, which is easy to cause ambiguity." Tan Xianjie said that the level of popular science audiences is uneven, and the purpose of reading is different. People full of curiosity.
In the Internet age, information is spreading fast, wide-ranging, and difficult to withdraw. Once there are errors, deletion may not help. "Because the Internet has memory, wrong information may be screened, and the resulting adverse effects are difficult to completely eliminate ."
Adhere to the "Four Nos" principle and avoid falling into the "trap"
How can we avoid falling into the "trap" of popular science creation?
Tan Xianjie summed up the "Four Nos" principle-not harming oneself, not harming colleagues, not destroying units, and not hurting patients.
How to understand "do not harm yourself"?
Tan Xianjie believes that first, doctors must have a correct attitude and pay attention to maintaining their professional image.
"The purpose of science popularization is to convey really useful and important medical knowledge to the public, not to gain attention and increase fans." He said that doctors are highly educated intellectuals who can bring some fashionable online language when speaking. There should be no dirty words, nor should they despise patients or belittle their peers in order to show their knowledge or superiority. “Patients are those who need help and services from doctors, and doctors should not and have no right to make moral evaluations on them.”
"If you don't want to harm yourself, there is an important aspect-don't cross-border, just write topics that you are good at." Tan Xianjie said that he almost only writes articles on gynecological tumors, because he doesn't know much about other industries, "and you must understand. Recommend peers".
Tan Xianjie said that he was invited by a media event to popularize knowledge about confinement for pregnant women. "I was blinded at the first glance. Because I am a male, I don’t know how to confinement, so I recommended a better one than me. The female doctor of Zhen Hospital, she has given birth to a child, and she is more experienced than me and much better than me."
How to understand "not hurting peers"?
"When we are doing science popularization, we should not arbitrarily evaluate or belittle the diagnosis and treatment of our colleagues. Different opinions can be communicated privately and should not be openly debated." Tan Xianjie said that when popularizing science, we must be careful not to take the credit or successful experience of colleagues as our own, and others The story is written about other people's stories, and the author is just a bystander.
How to understand "not destroying the unit"?
"I am a doctor at Peking Union Medical College Hospital. Sometimes I am invited to give lectures, not only because of my little professional contribution, but also because of the platform behind me." Tan Xianjie said, no matter where I am, the doctor will take the unit with me. Attribution, strict self-discipline should be adopted to avoid any negative impact on the unit, "No matter where I am, I only say what I should say, only give the medicine that should be given, and only give the surgery that should be done."
How to understand "do not hurt the patient"?
"A very important aspect is to protect the privacy of patients." Tan Xianjie said, patients' privacy is very important, especially medicine has special characteristics, such as the Department of STD, psychiatry, infectious diseases and other departments have very strong privacy.
For patients, it is unpleasant and even painful to disclose personal privacy. Doctors must have a sense of self-discipline. Protecting patient privacy is not only a code of ethics, but also a legal requirement.
If science involves patient privacy, first ask for consent
In the Internet age, how can doctors protect patient privacy while popularizing science?
"First choose the topic carefully." Tan Xianjie introduced that cases involving first aid, common sense, disaster relief, and risk avoidance are not only important, but there are not many cases involving privacy, or the privacy part is easy to be ignored, and it is not easy to cause disputes.
Cases involving personal experience, work, emotions, and sexual life are relatively difficult to deal with, prone to trouble, and require caution.
"If at a certain point of knowledge, you have to choose between medical science popularization and patient privacy protection, I think you should choose the latter." Tan Xianjie said that patients have no reservations about seeking medical treatment and trust in doctors. To inform privacy in a timely manner, so doctors must have professional ethics and be responsible to patients. In order to protect patients’ privacy, many things must rot in their stomachs. This is also the basic requirement of practicing medicine.
"If you feel that a certain medical knowledge point is very important and has a great warning effect on the public, it needs to be released, but it also involves the privacy of patients, then the opinions of the patients must be solicited, and the relevant information will be released after the patients agree." Tan Xianjie pointed out that when releasing popular science information, Pay attention to hiding the patient's name, appearance, medical record number and other information. You may wish to use the method of combining virtual and actual, and try to graft specific information such as age, occupation, hometown, and medical time to reduce the recognition.
In addition, it is best not to send out what has just happened immediately, otherwise it may be difficult for patients and relatives and friends to accept it.
"Doctors are benevolent, pay attention to the appropriate tone when conducting medical science popularization." Tan Xianjie said that doctors can write popular science articles in a tone of sympathy, at best, of kindness and humor, and avoid using ridicule, accusation, ridicule, and criticism.
At the same time, pay attention to the processing of pictures, "For example, some pictures of malignant tumors, organ deformities or operations, doctors may look ordinary, but the public may feel uncomfortable, it is best to deal with them appropriately before publishing, or present them in the form of cartoons, schematics, etc."
"It is really time-consuming to do science popularization. It is necessary to spread medical knowledge with heart, affection, and professionalism." Tan Xianjie said that it is very necessary to spread medical knowledge to the public, and it is also an important manifestation of doctors' professional conscience and social responsibility.
Excellent medical science works have a positive effect on improving the basic medical literacy of the public and promoting the harmonious relationship between doctors and patients, and can truly benefit the public.
Reporter: Wang Meihua