Communicating risk - Anaesthesia 2024 podcast

Anaesthesia on Air

In this fascinating conversation Dr Sam Black talks to Maricarmen Climent and Jayne Hidderley about risk and how it is communicated in clinical settings.
This podcast, the fourth of a series recorded at the RCoA's 2024 Annual Conference in Glasgow, follows a keynote talk given by Maricarmen and Leila Finikarides and expands on the themes they discussed, in the context of the Montgomery judgment and associated GMC guidance, amongst other things.
We hear how risk is as much a feeling as a statistical fact, and that to make discussions of risk useful we should try to use 'natural' or meaningful frequencies, describe the absolute risk of something happening and - above all - ask patients about their own attitudes to risk. What matters to them about their forthcoming procedure and how they can best understand the implications.
[Recorded May 2024] This recording was made at the time of the culmination of the UK infected blood enquiry.

Additional information

• Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication
• Sense About Science | Risk know how
• GMC | Montgomery judgment
• RCoA Patient information resources | Anaesthesia and risk
• RCoA Patient Voices
• Science Media Centre Spain | Communicating risk resources for journalists