Medical journalism

Medical journalism is the dissemination of health-related information through mainstream media outlets. Medical issues are widely reported, and these reports influence physicians, the general public, and the government. The coverage is often criticized for being misleading, inaccurate, or speculative. Several web sites and journals review medical journalism. The availability of health information steadily increases every year and has led to a variety of effect in the behaviors of recipients.

Medical journalism can come from a variety of sources including:

Most inaccuracies and speculations in news coverage can be attributed to several barriers between the scientific community and the general public that include lack of knowledge by reporters, lack of time to prepare a proper report, and lack of space in the publication. Most news articles fail to discuss important issues such as evidence quality, costs, and risks versus benefits. However, medical journalism is not only what is being commercialized and covered by news and mass media. There is also another extensive, more academic branch of medical journalism which is based on evidence. Evidence-based research is more accurate and thus it is a much more reliable source than medical news disseminated by tabloids. Medical journalism in this regard is a professional field and is often disregarded. There are also some medical journalism institutions that provide assistance to medical researchers to enable them to perform more reliable studies. A 2009 study found small improvements in some areas of medical reporting in Australia, but the overall quality remained poor, particularly in commercial human-interest television programs.

More recently, the use of medical writers has become more popular as a way to produce medical literature that is clear, concise, and easier to read by the lay person.

The ICMJE, International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, is a committee that specifically deals with this kind of issue. This organization is committed to keeping medical reporting as true as possible by setting a standard known as URM, or the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts. These requirements do not only specify technical points such as bibliographical references and copyrights but also regarding ethical issues that may arise. For example, a submitter must disclose any personal or professional relationships that might even slightly have a bearing on the submitted work.

To this end, it is not uncommon for researchers to hold a press conference or interviews before publishing significant research to prevent any misconstruing of any data or methods.

A large gap divides the scientific and journalist communities when it comes to deciding what is newsworthy. The ongoing nature of peer review in the scientific community makes it difficult to report interesting advances in scientific discovery. Consequently, this can create a focus on the negative aspects of medicine and science; causing journalists to report on the mistakes of doctors or misconstruing the results of research. However, journalists are not the only ones to fault as scientists have also broadcast their promising initial research to the media in attempts to secure future funding. For example, research done by George Washington University in 1993 on in-vitro fertilization was warped by the media into a horrific foray into human cloning.

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