health questions shouldn't hurt
TRANSCRIPT
Health Questions Shouldn’t Hurt
Washington Library Association
April 21, 2006
Tacoma, WA
Gail Kouame – Consumer Health Coordinator – NN/LM, PNR
Why Is Health Information Unique?
Medical Terminology
Scary!
Highly Emotional
Medical Terminology - Deciphering “Medspeak” Mostly Greek or Latin origins
Diagnosis and Surgery – GreekAnatomical terms – Latin
Medical terms are formed from word:RootsPrefixesSuffixesCombining vowels/forms
Medical TerminologyDeciphering “Medspeak” Root – the foundation of the word, can be combined with
a prefix or suffix
Prefix – place before the root to modify its meaning
Suffix – placed after the root to modify and give essential meaning to the root
Combining form – root with a combining vowel attached (e.g. lip/o-); o is the most common combining vowel
Medical TerminologyDeciphering “Medspeak” In deciphering medical terms, it is best to look first at the
meaning of the suffix, then at the meaning of the root and prefix
Example:hyperlipoproteinemiahyper- (prefix) – excessivelip- (root) – fato (vowel used to create a combining form, lipo-)protein (root) – protein-emia (suffix) – blood condition
Hyperlipoproteinemia – a blood condition, characterized by an excessive amount of fat and protein
Medical TerminologyDeciphering “Medspeak”Example:
pericarditis
peri- (prefix) – around
cardi (root) – heart
-itis (suffix) – inflammation
Pericarditis literally means “inflammation around the heart” but the dictionary states that this term means inflammation of the pericardium (-ium is a suffix meaning tissue), the sac that encloses the heart
Medical TerminologyDeciphering “Medspeak”
Using a medical dictionary
When the exact word for which you need a definition is not in the dictionary, look up the root word. Medical dictionaries use sub-entries heavily. You may find the exact word you are looking for listed under its root
Medical TerminologyDeciphering “Medspeak”
Example from Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary. Note the sub-entries.
Kidney (kid´ ne) [L. ren; Gr. nephros] [MeSH: Kidney] either of the two organs in the lumbar region that filter the blood…The kidney consists of a cortex and a medullaabdominal k., an ectopic kidney situated above the iliac crest with the hilus adjacent to the second lumbar vertebraflea-bitten k., a kidney which has a small, randomly scattered petechiae on its surface, sometimes seen in bacterial endocarditis.
Medical TerminologyDeciphering “Medspeak”
If the exact word you were looking for isn’t a sub-entry, look up the word’s prefixes and suffixes. Common medical prefixes and suffixes will have main entries.
Pop Quiz
On page 2 of your Medical Terminology handout, there are some exercises.
Using the tables of prefixes, suffixes, and roots on the following pages find the meanings of the words on the bottom of page 2.
Medical Reference Interactions
In Public Libraries…
NLM discovered during a pilot project that 6-20% of reference requests were health-related
Even when the number of reference requests was low, the health-related requests tended to be among the most time-intensive
Many Hospital Libraries…
Are not open to the public Do not have information that is written for
the general public – information is not at a level that the average consumer can understand
Many members of the general public do not know that there is such a thing as a hospital library
What are some of the issues for patrons who come to the library for health information?
No library or research skills Expecting to find information that addresses
their own unique problems Come in with misinformation or inadequate
information Difficultly interpreting conflicting information No skills in evaluating the quality of information
What are some of the issues for patrons who come to the library for health information?
Exhibiting intense emotion Inability to present the problem clearly Unreasonable expectations regarding the
information that can be provided Confusion about the library’s role Others...
What are the issues for library staff in providing health information? Not always familiar with resources that would
best answer the question Language/vocabulary in medical texts might be
too difficult for patrons to read/understand Time-consuming Afraid of giving the wrong answer Afraid of giving “medical advice” Others…
The Reference Interview
Provide a “safe”, private place for your reference interviews
Use terms like “You must be worried,” or “This must be difficult”
Maintain confidentiality Know the limits of your collection Do not interpret medical information Do not speak from personal experience or
knowledge
3 Little Words
I Don’t Know Or, I can’t get that information for you Don’t be afraid to refer the person back to
his/her health care provider
Drugs, Supplements, and other fancy stuff
MedlinePlus.gov is a great starting place!
Drugs, Supplements, and other fancy stuff www.eckerd.com
FREE access to the Multimedia Gold Standard database
Includes drug interactions Includes pill images Includes herbal supplementsGo to the “Drug Advisor” section
Drugs, Supplements, and other fancy stuff www.drugdigest.com
Similar to Eckerd, but less “commercial” feeling
Includes both drugs and herbsHas interactions and pill imagesAdded feature – drug comparisons
Drugs, Supplements, and other fancy stuff www.labtestsonline.com
A slightly different angleProduced by a collaboration of professional
societies in the lab communityPeer-reviewed, non-commercial, patient-
centeredSearch by test or by condition
What about those news stories your patrons are hearing and
reading?
Be careful about reading health books. You might die of a misprint.
--Mark Twain
Health Care Journalists
Special thanks to Sanjay Bhatt, staff writer at the Seattle Times, for helping to provide information for this
presentation!
The Challenges for Journalists
Understanding the clinical science and epidemiology Dealing with powerful vested interests
Sometimes treatments are overplayed as “cures” or as better than older, less expensive medicines
Misleading with statistics – absolute risk vs. relative risk (we’ll talk about this later)
Reporting on a researcher announcing a breakthrough on a research project – find out later researcher is a paid consultant for a drug co.
The Challenges for Journalists
Have to rely solely on what the scientists are telling them or on a PR agency that is providing information (in a press release, for example)
Commercial pressures and deadlines that give little time to reflect on stories, many of which are written on the same day as a press release
Where Do Librarians Fit In?
At bigger newspapers and news agencies, there are librarians on staff
Help with research to find resources to prove or disprove a theory
Provide access to studies/articles that reporter may have heard about
There’s Hope! Association of Health Care Journalists
www.ahcj.umn.edu Serve as a training arm for reporters and editors Advocate for greater access to information that will
serve the public Hold national conferences yearly – 2006 meeting will
include a librarian on a panel! Hold workshops and produce reporting guides
throughout the year Developing a starter’s guide for journalists new to
health
The Scientist’s Point of View
Derived from a lecture by Maynard Olson of the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research
Center:
“The Social Responsibility of Science”August 11, 2005
The Scientist’s Point of View
“Hype, Hope, and Money” – How do they interact?Our culture loves triumphs (hope) as well as
controversy and scandal (hype)Most of science fall into neither of these
categoriesHowever, the media will almost invariably crowbar
stories about science into one of these worlds -- or better yet a combination of them
The Scientist’s Point of View
Show me the money!
Public/private competition speeds things up, but one effect is that the public’s expectations about the short-term practical pay-off of basic research becomes distorted.
The Scientist’s Point of View How do scientists communicate with the
larger public?How to communicate a realistic message to
society about the limitations -- maybe even the failures -- of science to alleviate problems about which people are deeply concerned.
The business of science is to provide reliable, accurate descriptions of the natural world, not to deliver good or bad news.
The Scientist’s Point of View
On the other hand, “Scientists shouldn’t be jerks.”
One issue in reporting on science is that an entire interview gets boiled down to a few words.
Keeping All This In Mind…
How can we “read between the lines?”
What to Watch For…
Headlines are intended to draw attention to an article, not to summarize conclusions
Look for the names and affiliation of the scientists responsible for research
Does the article mention where and when the study has been or will be published?
Who funded the study? (This is important!) Are results from animal studies?
What to Watch For…
Reports from medical conferences – be cautious!
“At conferences, researchers often present preliminary findings that can be quite tantalizing, but that may or may not pan out”
Source: “How to Get Beyond Headlines and Hype
to Find Answers You Can Use”
Lifetime Fitness, November/December 2003
Go Back to the Source! Many articles draw from mainstream
medical journals such as JAMA New England Journal of MedicineAnnals of Internal Medicine
Most of these are available through the databases many of you most likely subscribe to:
Health & Wellness Resource Center (Gale) ProQuest EBSCOhost
Health Stories in the Media
Accuracy Is there a discrepancy between the claim and
the research?
(ex: “Stem Cells Cure Arthritis!” vs. “Stem Cells Put Women’s Arthritis in Remission”)
Are there footnotes, bibliographies, or references so that you can verify the information?
Health Stories in the Media
AccuracyDoes the report give numbers and statistics in
context so you can determine their relevance?Has this study been repeated by anyone
else?Does the story state the evidence upon which
the material is based?Are opinions or advice presented as
“evidence based?”
Health Stories in the Media
AuthorityWas the article published in a peer-reviewed
journal? If so, it has more credibility than when posted on a website or a brochure.
Use PubMed to find other articles published by researchers being quoted – are they an expert?
Health Stories in the Media
CoverageHow many people participated in the study?
What kinds of people were in the study?
How long was the study? Has there been time to determine possible side effects?
Health Stories in the Media
Types of articles:
Case studies – Describe and discuss the clinical aspects of an individual with a disease. Such articles may also present unusual or unexpected cases.
Health Stories in the Media
Types of articles
Research articles– Discuss the effects in humans of various interventions that have been tested. May be about many different types of studies that are conducted on humans (or animals).
Review articles – Present the information known to date about a disease. Author has reviewed the literature and provides a summary article.
Go Back to the Source!
When you need to track down the full citation of an article, use PubMed!
Single Citation Matcher is just the ticket!
Health Stories in the Media
Hot off the press!www.HealthNewsReview.org
Free and open to consumers. Created by University of Minnesota journalism
professor Gary Schwitzer. Reviewers will monitor top newspapers, magazines
and other media outlets, including The Associated Press, and rate their coverage of health issues.
Health Stories in the Media
To get more information go to:MedlinePlus – Health Topic “Understanding
Medical Research”medlineplus.gov
National Institute on Aging – “Understanding Risk: What do Those Headlines Really Mean?”www.niapublications.org/engagepages/risk.asp
Glossary of Clinical Trials Termswww.clinicaltrials.gov/ct/info/glossary
