Communicating risk - Anaesthesia 2024 podcast
In this fascinating conversation Dr Sam Black talks to Maricarmen Climent and Jayne Hidderley about risk and how it is communicated in clinical settings.
This podcast, the fourth of a series recorded at the RCoA's 2024 Annual Conference in Glasgow, follows a keynote talk given by Maricarmen and Leila Finikarides and expands on the themes they discussed, in the context of the Montgomery judgment and associated GMC guidance, amongst other things.
We hear how risk is as much a feeling as a statistical fact, and that to make discussions of risk useful we should try to use 'natural' or meaningful frequencies, describe the absolute risk of something happening and - above all - ask patients about their own attitudes to risk. To find out what matters about their forthcoming procedure and how they can best understand the implications.
[Recorded May 2024] This recording was made at the time of the culmination of the UK infected blood enquiry.
Additional information
Dr Samantha Black is the Patient Information lead at the Royal college of Anaesthetists.
She is a consultant paediatric and perioperative anaesthetist at Medway NHS Foundation Trust. Along with her interest in colorectal surgery and prehabilitation, she has a keen interest in paediatrics, being part of the APAGBI paediatric perioperative group, and also a strong interest in shared decision making, leading the team that produced the CPOC, AoMRC, CWUK collaboration to create an animation for patients to illustrate what shared decision making should look like: ‘Peter's Journey’.
Maricarmen specializes in improving risk communication in healthcare settings and the media.
She is currently a Research and Editorial Officer at Sense about Science, where she works on the project Risk know-how, supporting vulnerable communities worldwide in understanding the risks that affect them. Previously Maricarmen served as Risk Communication Lead at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
During her four years at the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication she developed risk communication tools and courses and trained around 2000 journalists and healthcare professionals in risk communication. Maricarmen also contributes to the Science Media Centre, Spain, providing guidance to journalists on this topic.
Maricarmen has a background as a science journalist for TV and radio. She has a degree in Veterinary Medicine and an MSc in Animal Health from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and an MSc in Science Communication from the University of Sheffield.
She is the founder and co-creator of 'Pan Pa’l Susto', an award-winning narrative podcast in the Spanish language that illuminates health stories linking health with social contexts.
Jayne is a Co-Vice-Chair of PatientsVoices@RCoA, a group of diverse people who support, advise and influence the College by providing patients’ perspectives on its activities.
Jayne is a former Chair of the Lay Committee and Trustee at the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and is a Patient and Public Voice Representative on NHS England’s National Programmes of Care (NPoCs) Trauma Commissioning Board.
She has also recently become a lay assessor for the Royal College of Physicians accreditation unit and or the Academy of Healthcare Science. Her background is as a lawyer specialising in pensions law and global employment law (now non-practising) and she has extensive healthcare experience.