The surgeon at Hospital Costa del Sol and also coordinator of the Endocrine Surgery Section of the Spanish Association of Surgeons (AEC), Christina Martinez Santoshas received the Award for Best Oral Communication at the European Congress of Endocrine Surgery which was recently held in Athens for the work ‘Could endocrine surgeons improve the information provided to thyroid cancer patients? (Can endocrine surgeons improve the information offered to patients with thyroid cancer?’).
This physician, who attended this event as a national delegate, has presented the data obtained in our country, after the analysis of the surveys carried out on patients and expert endocrine surgeons through the Spanish Association of Thyroid Cancer Patients (AECAT) and the Spanish Association of Surgeons (AEC).
The study compares the information needs demanded by patients operated on thyroid cancer with what Spanish endocrine surgeons really offer.
A specific question was asked about the importance we give to 24 aspects related to surgery, new technologies, passing through the hospital, possible complications, etc. and have been found areas for improvement in communicationthe Board has indicated in a statement.
The results obtained, according to Martínez, “have been very interesting since it has been shown that we surgeons focus a lot on reporting possible severe complications after the operation, but the patients also need other types of information. They are, for example, curious about technological advances in the operating room and, in addition, they demand or need to know more about non-specific and sometimes difficult-to-treat complications that we physicians believe are less important, but that can influence their quality of life “.
In this regard, he stressed that “we should also adapt to your needs and not only inform about what we believe is more important”. It has also been observed that the interest of surgeons and patients coincides in aspects such as prognosis, hormone replacement therapy for life, etc.
“It is very important to detect these shortcomings and try to improve them, although sometimes we have little time, so that patients are better informed and can better participate in the decisions that affect their health,” he concluded.
After this analytical work, a group of expert endocrine surgeons At the national level of the AEC, coordinated by Cristina Martínez, they have recorded and edited a series of short videos, called video-capsules, of about three minutes, aimed at patients with information on those aspects that have been detected as deficient so that they can access and complement the information they need or demand and of which they have not been informed by the doctors.
All this audiovisual material has been transferred to the Aecat and will be available in the coming weeks on the web so that patients can have easy access to this content.