Fishburn Hedges

23.05.2009

The Department of Health recently awarded academic health science centre (AHSC) status to five groupings of universities and teaching hospitals, the latest step in furthering the so-called translational agenda, to speed up the process of translating medical research into patient care.

This is increasingly relying on effective partnership between teaching hospitals, medical research facilities and patients, thus creating new requirements for understanding between medics and the media. Here Professor Graham M Lord of King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital explores some of the issues.

There's the world of scientists, nameless boffins huddled away in a laboratory somewhere, and then there's the media, full of brash in-your-face celebrities, eye-catching headlines and of course all those sensationalist health stories.

The 'eat this', 'don't drink that', the 'you can live to be a hundred' or the 'you will die tomorrow' sort of stuff. At a glance they couldn't be more different, yet look behind the headlines and there's a rather different story emerging.

Balancing headlines and good science

The public's appetite for health stories only seems to grow and grow - not least because of issues such as the current swine flu pandemic, which could potentially have an impact on the whole of society.

It does seem that the willingness of the science community to engage in a dialogue with the public is also shifting, and shifting pretty fast. But is this a good thing? How do we avoid reducing complex science to simplistic nonsense that creates a good headline and false hope as people cling to the notion of a miracle cure?

Can scientists, few of whom have ever faced a camera and most of whom have only explained their work to their students or fellow scientists at a conference, learn to use the media effectively to increase understanding, communicate important ethical issues and ultimately drive medical innovation?

First we need the confidence, and then we need the practical support, whether that's the university or hospital press office, or from organisations such as the Science Media Centre.

s the pressure to secure grants increases and the competition for funding intensifies, more of us seem to be ready to take the plunge, fingers crossed that we can persuade the media to listen and to report our side of the story accurately.

Stem cell success

There have been successes. Last year the Science Media Centre mobilised a small army of stem cell scientists and other experts to take to the airwaves and respond to what they believed were highly damaging and misleading comments made by religious leaders in the run-up to the Easter weekend.

As the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill entered the final stages of its long passage through Parliament, amidst growing anxiety about hybrid embryos it was vital to explain and to reassure.

It was a debate that the scientists ultimately won, conveying detailed arguments about leading-edge science and medical research, as well as setting out the complex regulatory environment in which they operate.

A few years ago few would have thought that possible.

Patient power driving patient care

Communicating complex science in an easily-accessible way is increasingly important, as patient power plays a more central role in determining healthcare priorities and, in turn, the focus of medical research.

There are spectacular examples where medical research and treatment for deadly diseases have been almost exclusively driven by patient power and public opinion coming together through the media, from newspapers to Hollywood. Who would believe that HIV/AIDS, a disease that only appeared in the 1980s and which was considered a near certain death sentence, could be virtually cured through the availability of a complex range of drug therapies?

And now the pressure has shifted to ensuring these treatments are extended to the millions of people still dying from HIV/AIDS in developing countries, with leading drug companies recently appearing to rise to the challenge in a meaningful way for the first time.

The translational agenda

Clear communication matters too in terms of managing public expectation. The importance of a dialogue and genuine partnership between the scientific community and the public, particularly patients, has never been greater.

Governments and funding bodies around the world, but particularly here in the UK, are calling time on the notion that scientists will be funded to do fantastic basic science into subjects that simply 'interest' them.

The focus on so-called 'translational' research is becoming the norm and the drivers are clear.

If funders are pumping millions of pounds into research, they expect to see tangible results and to see them fast with, for example, real benefits for patients within five years.

This has to be a good thing, so long as we don't lose the basic science that underpins the translational agenda.

And an inevitable consequence will be that biomedical scientists and researchers can no longer practise their science tucked away in a lab somewhere.

From the bench to the bedside

Translational research is necessarily focused on getting new treatments from 'bench to bedside' as rapidly as possible. This requires us to work in partnership with patients and the public, to raise their understanding of and engagement in healthcare and related research, to persuade them of the benefits of clinical trials, to manage their expectations and to maintain their confidence in our work.

There can be no doubt that success will require ever closer interaction between those who have traditionally published in New Scientist and the medical journals, and the reporters and editors of our national media, from broadsheet and broadcast to the Daily Mail and tabloid press.