Effects of Out-of-Hospital Continuous Nursing on Postoperative Breast Cancer Patients by Medical Big Data

This study aimed to explore the application value of the intelligent medical communication system based on the Apriori algorithm and cloud follow-up platform in out-of-hospital continuous nursing of breast cancer patients. In this study, the Apriori algorithm is optimized by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and graphics processing unit (GPU) to improve its data mining speed. At the same time, a cloud follow-up platform-based intelligent mobile medical communication system is established, which includes the log-in, my workstation, patient records, follow-up center, satisfaction management, propaganda and education center, SMS platform, and appointment management module. The subjects are divided into the control group (routine telephone follow-up, 163) and the intervention group (continuous nursing intervention, 216) according to different nursing methods. The cloud follow-up platform-based intelligent medical communication system is used to analyze patients’ compliance, quality of life before and after nursing, function limitation of affected limb, and nursing satisfaction under different nursing methods. The running time of Apriori algorithm is proportional to the data amount and inversely proportional to the number of nodes in the cluster. Compared with the control group, there are statistical differences in the proportion of complete compliance data, the proportion of poor compliance data, and the proportion of total compliance in the intervention group ( P < 0.05 ). After the intervention, the scores of the quality of life in the two groups are statistically different from those before treatment ( P < 0.05 ), and the scores of the quality of life in the intervention group were higher than those in the control group ( P < 0.05 ). The proportion of patients with limited and severely limited functional activity of the affected limb in the intervention group is significantly lower than that in the control group ( P < 0.05 ). The satisfaction rate of postoperative nursing in the intervention group is significantly higher than that in the control group ( P < 0.001 ), and the proportion of basically satisfied and dissatisfied patients in the control group was higher than that in the intervention group ( P < 0.05 ).

Sexism in Medical Communication

Communication is one of the most essential skills of the medical profession, however, it is a tool through which sexism and gender discrimination are promoted and reproduced. There is often the perception in medicine and surgery that gender inequity centres on lifestyle, family responsibilities, and childcare issues. However, this chapter highlights that deeply engrained biases in medical communication still exist, and are perpetrated by institutions and individuals, women included. Awareness of gendered language must be raised and highlighted in order to make a change. It is achievable to speak in gender-neutral ways that are inclusive and precise as to not conjure biased attitudes towards women in medicine. Social change must be pursued at the level of the institution, the cultural structure, and at the interactional level of gender.

Communicating Across Cultures and Languages in the Health Care Setting. Claire Penn & Jennifer Watermeyer. Palgrave Macmillan, UK. 368 Pp. ISBN 978-1-137-58100-6

The book under review presents the challenging and creative research endeavours concerning some peculiar characteristics of multicultural and multilingual communication in South African healthcare settings. The authors of this work – Claire Penn, a professor and director of the Health Communication Research Unit, and Jennifer Watermeyer, an associate professor in the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, – focus on bridging the gap between the voices of the lifeworld and the voices of medicine via communication characterized by the complexities and pitfalls within culturally and linguistically diverse health care contexts. The research under review is aimed at analyzing the cognitive space of professional medical communication in healthcare settings for applying the results in practice. Research of the cross-language interactions in healthcare facilities (using the evidence from South African medical settings) certainly contributes a lot to establishing an adequate cultural brokers’ role in the professional communication and to describing methods aimed at modifying interactions between a healthcare professional and a patient, which taken together lead to the improvement of medical communication in general. This book is a reasonably valuable source of essential knowledge for both healthcare professionals, linguists, discourse analysis researchers, medical educators and practitioners, and for those people who are interested in the specificities of communication research projects in terms of professional medical discourse on the global scale.

LINGUISTIC AND INFORMATIVE FEATURES OF STUDYING THE THEME “PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION A PHYSICIAN AND A PATIENT WITH SYMPTOMS DISEASES OF DIGESTIVE SYSTEM’S ORGANS” OF DISCIPLINE “PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL COMMUNICATION OF A DOCTOR WITH A PATIENT IN UKRAINIAN

The article presents educational, informative and methodical materials necessary for studying the theme “Professional communication a physician and a patient with symptoms diseases of the digestive system’s organs” in classes on the discipline “Professional medical communication of a doctor with a patient in Ukrainian language”. The complex of tasks is aimed at the development of students’ communicative skills and abilities: to study the vocabulary to denote the organs of the digestive system, gastrointestinal diseases; be able to build monologue and dialogic expressions that describe the causes and symptoms of the digestive system’s diseases, using learned lexical units and phrases; to develop skills of collecting the anamnesis of gastroenterological diseases; memorize phrases and sentences for first aid in food poisoning, in emergencies during stomach pain; to create modern informative and expert systems for developing lesson’s materials. The proposed system of tasks will help to master the skills and abilities to communicate orally and in writing in accordance with the goals and social norms of speech behavior in typical spheres and situations. Taking into account different methods and forms of work, the tasks with which it was possible to ensure the active participation of each student in the class, to stimulate interest and desire to study medical terminology in accordance with the topic of the class are singled out. It was suggested a variety of test and creative tasks to check the knowledge of the student’s studied topic. The materials described in the article are intended for foreign students of medical specialties who speak the language at a sufficient level. Tasks selected on the basis of four main types of speech activity (listening, speaking, reading, writing) will help foreign students not only to expand their vocabulary, but also to achieve social interaction in a foreign language professional sphere.

Beneath the Skin: Emulating human physiology using a novel bitmap-based “voxel” 3D-printing workflow.

<p>Novel technologies that produce medical models which are synthetic equivalents to human tissue may forever change the way human anatomy and medicine are explored. Medical modelling using a bitmap-based additive manufacturing workflow offers exciting opportunities for medical education, informed consent practices, skills acquisition, pre-operative planning and surgical simulation. Moving medical data from the 2D-world to tactile, highly detailed 3D-printed anatomical models may significantly change how we comprehend the body; revamping everything – from medical education to clinical practice. Research Problem The existing workflow for producing patient-specific anatomical models from biomedical imaging data involves image thresholding and iso-surface extraction techniques that result in surface meshes (also known as objects or parts). This process restricts shape specification to one colour and density, limiting material blending and resulting in anatomically inequivalent medical models. So, how can the use of 3D-printing go beyond static anatomical replication? Imagine pulling back the layers of tissue to reveal the complexity of a procedure, allowing a family to understand and discuss their diagnosis. Overcoming the disadvantages of static medical models could be a breakthrough in the areas of medical communication and simulation. Currently, patient specific models are either rigid or mesh-based and, therefore, are not equivalents of physiology. Research Aim The aim of this research is to create tangible and visually compelling patient-specific prototypes of human anatomy, offering an insight into the capabilities of new bitmap-based 3D-printing technology. It proposes that full colour, multi-property, voxel-based 3D-printing can emulate physiology, creating a new format of visual and physical medical communication. Data Collection and Procedure For this study, biomedical imaging data was converted into multi-property 3D-printed synthetic anatomy by bypassing the conversion steps of traditional segmentation. Bitmap-based 3D-printing allows for the precise control over every 14-micron material droplet or “voxel”. Control over each voxel involves a process of sending bitmap images to a high-resolution and multi-property 3D-printer. Bitmap-based 3D-printed synthetic medical models – which mimicked the colour and density of human anatomy – were successfully produced. Findings This research presented a novel and streamlined bitmap-based medical modelling workflow with the potential to save manufacturing time and labour cost. Moreover, this workflow produced highly accurate models with graduated densities, translucency, colour and flexion – overcoming complexities that arise due to our body’s opaqueness. The presented workflow may serve as an incentive for others to investigate bitmap-based 3D-printing workflows for different manufacturing applications.</p>

Beneath the Skin: Emulating human physiology using a novel bitmap-based “voxel” 3D-printing workflow.

<p>Novel technologies that produce medical models which are synthetic equivalents to human tissue may forever change the way human anatomy and medicine are explored. Medical modelling using a bitmap-based additive manufacturing workflow offers exciting opportunities for medical education, informed consent practices, skills acquisition, pre-operative planning and surgical simulation. Moving medical data from the 2D-world to tactile, highly detailed 3D-printed anatomical models may significantly change how we comprehend the body; revamping everything – from medical education to clinical practice. Research Problem The existing workflow for producing patient-specific anatomical models from biomedical imaging data involves image thresholding and iso-surface extraction techniques that result in surface meshes (also known as objects or parts). This process restricts shape specification to one colour and density, limiting material blending and resulting in anatomically inequivalent medical models. So, how can the use of 3D-printing go beyond static anatomical replication? Imagine pulling back the layers of tissue to reveal the complexity of a procedure, allowing a family to understand and discuss their diagnosis. Overcoming the disadvantages of static medical models could be a breakthrough in the areas of medical communication and simulation. Currently, patient specific models are either rigid or mesh-based and, therefore, are not equivalents of physiology. Research Aim The aim of this research is to create tangible and visually compelling patient-specific prototypes of human anatomy, offering an insight into the capabilities of new bitmap-based 3D-printing technology. It proposes that full colour, multi-property, voxel-based 3D-printing can emulate physiology, creating a new format of visual and physical medical communication. Data Collection and Procedure For this study, biomedical imaging data was converted into multi-property 3D-printed synthetic anatomy by bypassing the conversion steps of traditional segmentation. Bitmap-based 3D-printing allows for the precise control over every 14-micron material droplet or “voxel”. Control over each voxel involves a process of sending bitmap images to a high-resolution and multi-property 3D-printer. Bitmap-based 3D-printed synthetic medical models – which mimicked the colour and density of human anatomy – were successfully produced. Findings This research presented a novel and streamlined bitmap-based medical modelling workflow with the potential to save manufacturing time and labour cost. Moreover, this workflow produced highly accurate models with graduated densities, translucency, colour and flexion – overcoming complexities that arise due to our body’s opaqueness. The presented workflow may serve as an incentive for others to investigate bitmap-based 3D-printing workflows for different manufacturing applications.</p>

Evaluation of a Language Translation App in an Undergraduate Medical Communication Course: Proof-of-Concept and Usability Study

Background Language barriers in medical encounters pose risks for interactions with patients, their care, and their outcomes. Because human translators, the gold standard for mitigating language barriers, can be cost- and time-intensive, mechanical alternatives such as language translation apps (LTA) have gained in popularity. However, adequate training for physicians in using LTAs remains elusive. Objective A proof-of-concept pilot study was designed to evaluate the use of a speech-to-speech LTA in a specific simulated physician-patient situation, particularly its perceived usability, helpfulness, and meaningfulness, and to assess the teaching unit overall. Methods Students engaged in a 90-min simulation with a standardized patient (SP) and the LTA iTranslate Converse. Thereafter, they rated the LTA with six items—helpful, intuitive, informative, accurate, recommendable, and applicable—on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (don’t agree at all) to 7 (completely agree) and could provide free-text responses for four items: general impression of the LTA, the LTA’s benefits, the LTA’s risks, and suggestions for improvement. Students also assessed the teaching unit on a 6-point scale from 1 (excellent) to 6 (insufficient). Data were evaluated quantitatively with mean (SD) values and qualitatively in thematic content analysis. Results Of 111 students in the course, 76 (68.5%) participated (59.2% women, age 20.7 years, SD 3.3 years). Values for the LTA’s being helpful (mean 3.45, SD 1.79), recommendable (mean 3.33, SD 1.65) and applicable (mean 3.57, SD 1.85) were centered around the average of 3.5. The items intuitive (mean 4.57, SD 1.74) and informative (mean 4.53, SD 1.95) were above average. The only below-average item concerned its accuracy (mean 2.38, SD 1.36). Students rated the teaching unit as being excellent (mean 1.2, SD 0.54) but wanted practical training with an SP plus a simulated human translator first. Free-text responses revealed several concerns about translation errors that could jeopardize diagnostic decisions. Students feared that patient-physician communication mediated by the LTA could decrease empathy and raised concerns regarding data protection and technical reliability. Nevertheless, they appreciated the LTA’s cost-effectiveness and usefulness as the best option when the gold standard is unavailable. They also reported wanting more medical-specific vocabulary and images to convey all information necessary for medical communication. Conclusions This study revealed the feasibility of using a speech-to-speech LTA in an undergraduate medical course. Although human translators remain the gold standard, LTAs could be valuable alternatives. Students appreciated the simulated teaching and recognized the LTA’s potential benefits and risks for use in real-world clinical settings. To optimize patients’ and health care professionals’ experiences with LTAs, future investigations should examine specific design options for training interventions and consider the legal aspects of human-machine interaction in health care settings.

What if health care worked like everything else?

Doctors use up-to-date communication technology in their personal lives, but the tools they use to communicate with professional colleagues are much more limited. In light of new research exploring the use of WhatsApp in Israel, this commentary explores the barriers to such use and the technological, legal, and cultural factors that enable adoption of such technologies for medical communication. Common tools can be used for professional collaboration but must be adapted for that use as well as culturally acceptable for broad implementation.