The Health Communication, Health Literacy, & Social Science (#hchlitss) tweet chat welcomes Kathy Kastner as our guest on
Thursday, April 19th at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. The tweet chat will focus on the use of medical jargon in the media and potential confusion jargon can cause.
So who is Kathy Kastner? A little about Kathy in her own words:
Kathy Kastner: the back story
In my career as tv reporter/producer, I spent a lotta years
producing ‘disease of the week’ stories. Topics were always intriguing: the
cranio-facial surgeon who dedicated himself to ‘normalizing’ the faces of high
intellect Down’s Syndrome kids; 21st Century Diseases: diseases of
malnutrition replaced by diseases of over consumption, alternative diagnostic
techniques, like analyzing hair., and Vaginal Birth after a Cesarean Section.
Format was a given, and will be familiar: something grabby
to start – ambulance wailing, mother crying, young/old man/woman
overcoming. Healthcare professionals in
an equally formulaic presentation: in examining room, talking with families,
doing blood pressure/ stethoscope. The ubiquitous walking shot.
Almost always those healthcare professionals felt their
worth was in their words, the more complicated the better. That showed “how much
they knew”. Jargon – spoken authoritatively
– made me feel I should know.
And that’s thing about media. Words like hypertension,
narcotics, benign, code, full code are used with such regularity that it’s
assumed viewers/readers know what they mean.
It was only when my life and career took a sharp turn that I
saw things differently.
I got pregnant. No longer
could I slough off words like episiotomy and epidural.
When I asked, turned out I was asking for all the couples in
the pre-natal class. After one of the classes, the instructor approached me
saying ‘you’re in production. Could you direct me to someone to produce
education that helps these expectant parents think past labour and delivery to
the baby they’re going to take care of.”
Thot about it for a minute.. Turned to my husband, who worked
at MuchMusic – Canada’s MTV, and we decided we’d have a go, approaching it as
‘real people’. And so was born The
Parent Channel and Healthtv, two hospital-based tv networks designed not to
scare you into watching, but soothe you into learning. Those grabby hooks:
off-putting. Jargon: defeating. Walking shots: useless.
A whole different sensibility is required for health
education. It is essential to ensure, from the get-go that words do not get in
the way. An unfamiliar word brings listening to a halt, as the brain tries to
do two different things: making sense of the word and making sense of what else
is being said.
I’m collecting words, now. Simple ones, that’d fit the 6-8
grade requirements but still baffle.
For me, part of the e-evolution and revolution is having the
guts and confidence to say – whatever your version - “You’ve lost me. I don’t
know what that means.’
I’m glad I’m not producing disease of the week anymore. So
much more fulfilling to determine real people's needs, and then try to fill ‘em.
The Health Communication, Health Literacy, & Social Science (#hchlitss) tweet chat welcomes Dr. Jason Schnittker (@JSSchnitt) as our guest on Thursday, April 26th at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. Dr. Schnittker will focus on how and why psychiatric disorder are measured and defined.
