TVs with patronising informertials in doctors waiting rooms

Handsome90 · 21 February 2013 at 7:35AM

Fire_Fox wrote: »

So we should stop all community or population health promotion, make all Public Health staff redundant and stop offering degrees in the field? Read the published research instead of assuming it is completely ineffective. I have, having worked in and studied healthcare for over two decades.

And no, those who are interested do not properly research the subject. Most are incapable of distinguishing between a trustworthy source and a poor source of health information - the public reads and parrot commercial diet books, magazines, Wikipedia and advert packed alternative 'nutrition' websites. I can't remember the last time I saw a new client who knew what all the healthy living guidelines were, yet plenty are interested or they wouldn't come to our service.

Those most people do know about are the ones most heavily 'advertised' - stop smoking and eat five a day. Yes, even the illiterate chavs.

Completely agree. The public don't read the research papers from BMJ, Cochrane etc or search for info in pubmed.What really annoys me is that how often the media (especially Daily Mail) gets stuff wrong (like over-extrapolating lab bench data, so resveratrol preventing cancer in a dish in a lab becomes red wine prevents breast cancer in humans).

VfM4meplse · 25 February 2013 at 10:29AM

Handsome90 wrote: »

Completely agree. The public don't read the research papers from BMJ, Cochrane etc or search for info in pubmed.

Let's be realistic, where there is poor literacy and numeracy you cannot expect any kind of academic rigour to be applied to an individual's research. For the majority, Google is about as sophisticated as it gets.

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Those most people do know about are the ones most heavily 'advertised' - stop smoking and eat five a day. Yes, even the illiterate chavs.

Those that most people know about are the ones that are regulated and taxed - such as the smoking ban, minimum unit price for alcohol in Scotland, restrictions on pack sizes of paracetamol etc. Giving people the choice means that often people will choose to ignore the option that is in their long-term interest in favour of jam today.

Abbafan1972 · 1 March 2013 at 9:15PM

Our doctors surgery had one of these constant loop of films playing, I forget what it was called, but there was a section about giving up smoking and a really annoying woman sitting in a circle with mothers, preaching in a patronising way how to bring up your kids.

The tv is still there on the wall, but it hasn't been on for ages.

The waiting room is stuffy, there used to be a water cooler, but that was taken out.

There is a pathetic little corner, where there's supposed to be toys to keep kids busy, but that's mostly empty with about 2 books.

dontone · 1 March 2013 at 11:11PM

Our doctor's surgery has the t.v with those infomercials on as it is a very small building, and at one point you could just about hear what was being said in the doctors surgery.
So they have it on to avoid embarrassment and preserve patient confidentiality. It's a bit annoying and repetitive, but it does the job.
Can't be much fun for the receptionist though.

gregg1 · 2 March 2013 at 12:30AM

paulofessex wrote: »

Some GP surgeries have Patient Participation groups/committees now, believe its something to do with health trust policies. May be worth seeing if your surgery has one and see about writing a letter pointing out issues such as loud music/tv's after all they are there to represent the patients.

I did. The next time I went the crappy music was cheesier and louder!!

Sally_A · 2 March 2013 at 12:32AM

Coriander can lower cholesterol dontcha know!

(Would probably need a ton of it, but the smiley woman on the screen didn't get specific).

TVs with patronising informertials in doctors waiting rooms

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