Medicalese - Translating Medical Language

There is a grade one strain in the biceps femoris at its origin. That’s clear, concise medical-ese for “you have a very minor boo-boo where your bum meets your thigh.” It might not be a good idea to go run a marathon for a couple of days but otherwise you’re fine. Was anyone worried there for a moment? The first sentence of this paragraph is at the heart of an issue most people face every time they visit any sort of medical professional. What the heck are they saying?

I run into this problem both at work and at home. My brain goes to that medical place and suddenly the roll shutters come down over my audience’s eyes and I am talking to no one. I have a husband who gets the willies when we watch “Grey’s Anatomy” or “House” because of the surgery scenes and all those body parts. Imagine how much he loves when I start talking about the three different ways your large intestines move food through themselves – while being possessed by a Latin dictionary.

In our defense medical professionals are put through several years of not just being encouraged, but required, to speak this way. During this time we are surrounded by lots of other people who also speak our language and are on the same amazing voyage of discovery that we are taking. It is like French immersion for anatomy geeks! After several years of this deep immersion we are turned loose into the world to learn to talk in real English again.

Sometimes the transition isn’t pretty, and sometimes we forget that there is a transition to be made. Some of us do not even try. Imagine us as foreign travelers trying to remember the bit of the local language that we learned back in high school. I try to include both technical terms and lay terms in my explanations, I will even drag out my book of drawings so I can point and show my clients what I am talking about. My clients seem to be happy with this style of communication and hopefully it is a style you encounter often. If it is not the style you encounter, try not to be afraid and ask questions, and keep asking them until you actually get an answer you understand.

In my opinion clear communication would help improve relations between medical professionals and the public that relies on them. In a perfect world all practitioners would a least try to make this shift and in doing so alleviate a great deal of frustration in patients and their families that is in no way helpful in promoting well-being.

As this is not a perfect world even persistence will not always get you the answers you need. If this is a situation you are experiencing or you at some point encounter, I suggest taking a notepad when you go to your next appointment and take notes. You might even get a friend or family member to accompany you and take notes for you. This companion serves two purposes, allowing you to listen to the practitioner and perhaps coming up with questions you do not think to ask. You may also want to take a list of questions or concerns with you so you do not forget them during the rush of the appointment. Make sure to ask for spellings from your professional, otherwise you may just be inviting more frustration. After all that stuff in you lungs that makes you cough is phlegm, not flem. You can then review the notes and, if you need to, go to a site that list medical terms with their translations, like this glossary of medical terms.

This is not a solution to the problem of poor communication that exists within the medical world. The frustration of patients who have obscure words thrown at them in stressful situations by individuals who are supposed to be assisting them is a frustrating one. What I offer is a coping mechanism, a way to educate yourself so that you are not left in the dark about your own condition. You may think this is unfair and the professionals should learn better communications skills. You are right and wrong in that. We professionals should have better communication skills. However, it is fair to expect you to take responsibility for your own body. Ultimately you are responsible to make the choices that determine your course of care. Expecting you to make an effort to understand what we are trying to communicate (even if we are doing it badly) is not unreasonable.

Patient responsibility feeds into another topic. I have many people coming into my office desperate for me to “fix” them. I am always very flattered that they have such faith in me, but I also dread those words because I know that I can only help them to heal themselves. This is the topic I am looking at next: the action of the body in healing itself, and how the medical profession can facilitate and improve that process.