This is Bruce Hugman’s blog about Healthcare Communication – anything and everything relevant to creating the best relationships with everyone in healthcare, especially patients. It’ll include things he forgot when he was writing the book, new ideas and thoughts, book reviews, international developments in communications, comments on your ideas and suggestions – lots! Read, comment – and then go to the forum if you’d like to air your views and discuss them with readers all over the world.
Hello and welcome!
January 11th, 2009Healthcare and the effects of poverty
April 11th, 2009Poor more likely to die after heart surgery
Narrowing health gap relies on ‘good start’ in life
Smoking, obesity and diabetes not only factors
Sarah Boseley, Health Editor
Friday April 3 2009
Copyright The Guardian
People who live in deprived areas of the country are more likely to die after heart surgery than those from more affluent places, even after allowing for the effects of smoking, obesity and diabetes, a new study shows today.
The research suggests that health inequalities have deeper roots than lifestyle choices. An editorial that accompanies the study in the British Medical Journal says poverty needs to be tackled if the health of the entire nation is to improve.
How risk scrambles our brains
April 11th, 2009Risk
The science and politics of fear
By Dan Gardner
Virgin Books, 2009 (paperback); ISBN 9780753515532
This is one of those great, elegant, clear books about complex subjects which are a joy to read.
Its scope is an understanding of the psychology, sociology and politics of risk and risk perception in almost all aspects of our lives, from familiar, everyday risks like car-travel, to the big perplexing issues of environmental toxicology and terrorism. There are some specific examples from medicine and pharmaceuticals (the US silicone breast implant crisis, and lots about cancer and cancer risks statistics among others), but the book deals with much broader issues which shine a bright light on all aspects of risk in healthcare.
The mysteries of placebo
April 10th, 2009This is a really important topic which I hardly dealt with in the book. It’s one that scientists don’t really like because in many respects it’s not measurable and it belongs more to the mysterious realms of psychology, mind/body studies and psychosomatics – all pretty scary for medics.
But it’s scientifically and therapeutically very important. In some respects, it really ought to be categorized under ‘treatment’, because any action, including what seems like no action or neutral action, always has some direct effect on health and welfare and is not, as commonly assumed, actually neutral or empty at all. The giving of a sugar-pill or even a diagnosis itself have no pharmaceutical or surgical components, but either may affect the physiology and/or the psychology of the recipient in important ways.