PR for Medical Research

Last week I attended a discussion event hosted by the CIPR's Health sector group. The event focused mostly on the impact of media (print media in the main) on patients and patient groups. However, a speaker from the Parkinson's Society through up an interesting point. Discussing their reactions to stories about medical developments or "breakthroughs" she mentioned that one of the first things she would also consider in those stories is at what stage the research is at - is it still in petri dishes or is it in clinical trial.

Having worked on many medical research news stories over the past few years this got me pondering ... at what point should universities and research organisations press release medical research stories? On the one hand there is a danger of releasing something early. The research might still be in the lab, or even a theory, and might not work at all in clinical trial. Announcing it to the world at this stage could raise false hopes and create all kinds of problems for GPs and health workers with patients demanding treatments that don't yet even exist. On the other hand, however, releasing stories at this early stage just might help researchers to raise the profile of the research enough to encourage funding to enable further development and clinical trials. It's a fine balancing act between the impact on patients and health professionals, and the need to raise the profile of research in order to further it. Tricky one. I think there's a whole other event just in this subject alone.