On this episode Ashley Hurst & Rebecca Goodrich of The Crohn's & Colitis Dietitians talk with Dr. Vena Martinez who specializes in Neuroscience and Pharmacology. Dr. Martinez has a PhD in Pharmacology and Chemical Biology from Baylor College of Medicine. Her work has been published in many notable scientific journals and she was given the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology award. Dr. Vena and Ashley are also good friends who once were lab partners in organic chemistry.
We talk about how there can be a disconnect between scientists and non scientific communities and Dr. Vena looks at ways we can fill in that gap. She discusses the fact that science and medicine can have their own language that can be difficult for people to understand. We can do our own research on our conditions and learn new information that will benefit us so we can make the most out of the time with our health care providers and also understand research articles.
We all can be bombarded with information and lots of questions can come up, such as: What evidence can I trust? What is relevant? Dr. Vena suggests dissecting where the information came from, checking references, and looking at the source to see if it's credible. Looking at an author's background can be helpful and check for biases, such as, is this author connected to a certain company selling products related to this study.
Dr. Vena recommends researching studies on: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. One can type in words of interest on this site and find many publications.
We also talk about being our own advocate as patients, staying curious and being open minded to information that can change over time. We also discuss being aware of our own bias and being set in certain beliefs. Challenging our beliefs can be uncomfortable and make you feel vulnerable. But remembering that knowledge keeps growing and changing can be helpful and staying up to date on that evolving information will be beneficial, especially with chronic illness.