Sometimes doctors use medical jargon that’s tough for patients to decipher.
Visoot Uthairam/Moment/Getty
Medical language can sometimes stump patients. And some common sayings are straight-up head-scratchers.
Calling a patient’s neurological exam “grossly intact,” for example, might not sound so great, says Michael Pitt, a pediatrician at the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis. But it actually means that everything is normal and working as expected.
In 2021, Pitt and his colleagues asked 215 adults at the Minnesota State Fair to decipher that language and 12 other medical sayings a patient might hear from a doctor or read in their notes. People can trip up on familiar words and phrases that have one meaning in everyday English and an entirely different meaning in medicine, the researchers report November 30 in JAMA Network Open .
Headlines and summaries of the latest Science News articles, delivered to your email inbox every Friday.
Thank you for signing up!
There was a problem signing you up.
Only about 20 percent of people surveyed, for example, understood what it meant when their doctor said, “The findings on the X-ray were quite impressive.” In plain language, that means the doctor is giving you bad news, Pitt says — the opposite of what some patients might expect.
When surveyed, doctors overwhelmingly agree that they should avoid medical jargon when speaking with patients, Pitt says. But many don’t even know they’re doing it. There’s a technical term for this too, Pitt adds: “jargon oblivion.”
He’s hoping his team’s results give doctors an “aha moment” and some awareness about phrases that might be puzzling patients. If a doctor says something that’s unclear, Pitt says, he wants patients to feel empowered to speak up.
He’s coached his family for years on this. When they go to the doctor, there’s one question in particular he wants them to ask. Before they leave an appointment, they’ll summarize what the doctor has said and ask, “Am I getting this right?”
“That type of phrase is amazing to have in your back pocket,” Pitt says.
R. Gotlieb et al. Accuracy in Patient Understanding of Common Medical Phrases . JAMA Network Open . Published online November 30, 2022. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.42972.
Meghan Rosen is a staff writer who reports on the life sciences for Science News . She earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology with an emphasis in biotechnology from the University of California, Davis, and later graduated from the science communication program at UC Santa Cruz.
Our mission is to provide accurate, engaging news of science to the public. That mission has never been more important than it is today.
As a nonprofit news organization, we cannot do it without you.
Your support enables us to keep our content free and accessible to the next generation of scientists and engineers. Invest in quality science journalism by donating today.
Science News was founded in 1921 as an independent, nonprofit source of accurate information on the latest news of science, medicine and technology. Today, our mission remains the same: to empower people to evaluate the news and the world around them. It is published by the Society for Science, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) membership organization dedicated to public engagement in scientific research and education (EIN 53-0196483).
Subscribers, enter your e-mail address for full access to the Science News archives and digital editions.
Not a subscriber?
Become one now .
