General Interest: Medical Jargon May Cloud Doctor-patient Communication
By: Mary Gillis
Submitted by: Michael Maury, UCSD School of Medicine

As Standardized Patient Educators, we understand the importance of clear communication. We encourage our students to use very little jargon or at least follow up any jargon with a clear explanation as to mitigate misunderstanding and confusion. In this article, Mary Gillis discusses a recent “survey of London oral and maxillofacial surgery clinic patients” where “more than a third of participants did not know the meaning of terms like ‘benign’ or ‘lesion’ and more than half could not define ‘metastasis’ or ‘lymph node’.” According to UK researchers, Gillis states, “when patients misunderstand commonly used medical terms, communication and decision-making may suffer.” Read the full article on Reuters Health News here.

Publications Committee Mission: “To bring high quality reporting of current research, trends, techniques and information regarding SP methodology and other relevant industry articles to the attention of the membership through the web-based ASPE eNews blog.”

Please provide comments, questions or suggestions about the ASPE eNews Blog here.