Dr. Brian Leber is a clinical hematologist at Hamilton Health Sciences, however he has indirectly helped to treat patients internationally.
He treats patients with a rare type of blood cancer called myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), which is characterized by abnormal production of blood cells by the bone marrow and can make people prone to infections, anemia and heart disorders. In treating patients with MDS, one of the greatest challenges Brian and his team faced was explaining the disease and complicated treatment options to patients and their caregivers.
To make it easier for his patients to understand, Brian started comparing MDS and its treatment options to gardening, because it was something to which patients of all ages and from all ethnic backgrounds could relate.
I used this gardening analogy with my hands for the past decade and, while it was helpful, I thought a visual tool with nice drawings would be better, said Brian.
He teamed up with Interkom, an advertising and creative design agency based in Burlington, and Bristol Myers Squibb, a pharmaceutical company based in Quebec which does not market a product to treat this disease to create an illustrative flip chart that doctors and nurses can use when educating patients.
The flip chart compares a healthy body to an orchard and cancer to defective seeds that choke out the normal seeds and stop the orchard from growing. The treatments are compared to different ways you can get the orchard growing again.
When patients are diagnosed with MDS it can be very scary and complicated, but this tool helps them understand and make informed decisions about their treatment, said Tammy De Gelder, a
nurse practitioner on the 3Z Blood Disorders Unit at McMaster University Medical Centre. Trees, fruit and fertilizers are easier to relate to than bone marrow, blood counts and chemotherapy treatment.
The MDS educational flip chart has been well received by patients and caregivers. It has been rolled out across the nation and now most hematologists in Canada are using the flip chart to educate MDS patients. In addition, it has been adopted by some US and Latin America health care providers.
The flip chart has even earned Interkom an international marketing award. It beat out 503 other submissions from 11 countries for the Summit International Award for marketing effectiveness in health care and medicine.
Im pleased that this tool was recognized and that we were able to help this patient population that had, up until now, been neglected, said Brian. Its something that people who are under stress can understand and grasp without using too much of their attention because, after all, they have lots of other things on their minds.
The creation of this tool also led Brian and his team to think of other ways to help this patient population. They recently started a patient support group where patients and caregivers can talk about coping, new treatments and supportive care.
http://www.interkom.ca
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Myelodysplastic Syndromes or MDSby peixplain4,134 views
Congratulations!
SummitInternational 1 year ago