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GIA 2003 Excellence Winner
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Annissa Andreson Orr, Senior Communications Specialist
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Media Campaigns
Baylor College of Medicine - Office of Public Affairs
"Sham on us! How one study took the scientific world by surprise"
Sometimes a press announcement is more than a press announcement. A Baylor
College of Medicine study, stated that a popular and expensive knee operation
for arthritis, called knee arthroscopy, did not work any better than placebo
surgery. While the initial goal of Baylor's public affairs office was
to generate local and national media coverage, it was soon apparent that
the study was going to generate enormous, and groundbreaking, ethical
questions about the future of patient
care. What had seemed a routine press release had become a public health
imperative that led to an
inter-institutional effort to educate the public about the rarely discussed
phenomenon of "sham"
surgery.
Goals
- Gather as much information about the study to be prepared for media
questions. Note: the study
was being published within two weeks in the New England Journal of Medicine.
- Create a media outreach campaign --in advance of the publication--
with select
reporters/publications to give them ample time to write a thorough and
well-informed story.
- Prepare the study's authors for media questions.
Results
- Media campaign generated more than 140 media placements mentioning
Baylor, such as:
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, UPI,
and a host of
national TV news broadcasting companies.
- Controversies were raised from a few orthopedic surgeons who performed
the surgery, but
the media training enabled the authors to handle criticism.
- The VA stopped paying for arthroscopic surgery for the knee.
- Surgeons are conducting research differently.
- Study inspired reporters to challenge the effectiveness of other common
medical procedures.
The study served as an excellent "case study" on how to publicize a
groundbreaking,
but complicated news story.
Contact: Anissa Anderson Orr, Senior Communications Specialist,
(713) 798-4712; anissaa@bcm.tmc.edu
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