Communicating and advocating for science and medicine: rules of engagement.

摘要

A challenging issue in research and medicine is one of communication with others who are neither researchers nor medical professionals-a persistent concern between science or medicine and policy or politics or the media. I believe that there is no natural communication framework among these several areas, and I admonish researchers and physicians to learn new skills and work at communicating with other stakeholders, be they politicians, policy makers, the media, or patients. As stated by Alvan Feinstein [1] several decades ago, "Since few human ideas are truly original, a scientist's creative thoughts generally represent the conquest of his own ignorance.. .to get his mind through to a liberating concept that is often obvious to an untutored observer, the scientist may have to overcome many intellectual restrictions-the boundaries of his specialized focus, the incrustations of his previous training, and fashions of his current preoccupations."