Health scribes should also take the doctors’ oath

“A mosquito causes malaria’ and ‘a mosquito spreads malaria’ are two sentences that sound correct but are worlds apart. Such is science and medical reporting. One word could be the defining difference; and therein lays the challenge.

A pedestrian approach to complex topics like medicine is unforgiving. An in-depth grasp of the topic is not only crucial but also necessary in order to relay the correct message without watering it down. Medicine is no mean feat, and one cannot be expected to understand a topic overnight and do an accurate report of it the next day. That is how reports of mosquitoes causing malaria get published or aired, causing medical professionals to cringe. Medics will tell you that the causative agent of malaria is a parasite called Plasmodium, and that there are many types of it. The mosquito is a vector and it spreads the parasite. See what one word can do?

The assumption that the public or audiences a journalist addresses have little to no understanding of the topic may do more harm than good. The danger with this is an over-simplification of the message, losing it in between translation. Not everything in science can be directly translated to everyday language without losing it. Additionally, part of the audience that understands the topic will not identify with the message and they will have a low opinion of the reporter.

The flip side of assuming that the audience is ignorant is that the journalist has a prime opportunity to bring out all dimensions of the topic. Getting this delicate balance may be what separates the chaff from the wheat.

Sensationalism at times loses the point of an informative medical discourse. One time, a Kenyan wrote a very passionate story about how they lost their relative in a public facility, blaming the doctor for inaction and negligence. Everyone was up in arms, condemning the doctor in the court of public opinion where they were tried, sentenced and hanged. Looking closely at the details later, there were gaps in the layman’s story that ultimately made it biased, but it was too late. At times, rushing to tell the story first may mean rushing to tell the wrong story and misleading the public.

Desktop journalism without verifiable facts in a scientific field such as medicine is akin to shooting oneself in the foot. Medicine is straightforward. It is not abstract. Though one will come across differing opinions, all should satisfactorily answer the question ‘why?’

One story was of a lady passionately appealing to the public to help her seek treatment in India. People contributed a shilling or two. It was a seemingly strange condition that even the journalist and the doctor had no name for. It later turned out that the ‘doctor’ was a quack. The thin line here is knowledge of what is factual and whether the case as presented is plausible.

But then again, many people think medical professionals are often hiding something, are up to no good or are out to make money at the expense of the sick and the desperate. Even when a second opinion is sought, some will still not believe that something could be as is, and they seek to punch holes at any information given. This is an exercise in futility.

If one’s source of information is credible, then there is no need to be a doubting Thomas. It’s amazing how people will take a politician’s word as gospel truth, but doubt an expert who perhaps has spent decades researching or working on an issue. No one has the monopoly of knowledge, but science, like numbers, don’t lie.

Medical reporting is not immune to the guiding tenets of journalism. The only difference possibly is that information relayed can improve life or cause harm. Journalists handling health and medicine should probably take the Hippocratic Oath, and abide by the ‘do no harm’ principle, since the power of pen and paper is almost synonymous with that of a stethoscope.

The writer is a medical doctor and health correspondent for KTN News.