KARACHI: Healthcare professionals recently urged print and electronic media journalists covering health issues to follow journalistic ethics and publish verified news, and improve their capacity and understanding of health issues to report accurately without offending healthcare professionals, patients, and their attendants.
Media people, on the other hand, acknowledged their limited capacity to report on health and science issues and advised healthcare professionals to be available to the media as much as possible, not to hide things, and to give them accurate information rather than being misinformed by unreliable sources.
Hundreds of healthcare professionals, medical students and other allied health professionals attended the interactive session titled ‘How Doctors Should Manage the Media’, which was part of the 18th Biennial International Scientific Conference of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Pakistan (SOGP).
Dr Seemi Jamali, former executive director of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), Dr Ali Madeeh Hashmi, a psychiatrist from King Edward Medical University, Lahore, Dr Samrina Hashmi, a former leader of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), and M. Waqar Bhatti, a health journalist associated with The News International, Karachi, moderated the interactive session.
