Doctors continue to use jargon that confuses patients and can be dangerous, a new study has found. Photograph: iStockLike every other journalist I know, I spent part of last week mucking around with ChatGPT, a new artificial intelligence chatbot that can write jokes, poems, student essays and, yes, newspaper columns.“As I sit here, typing away on my laptop, I can’t help but feel like the world’s biggest idiot.
In fact, it took a dim view of some of the worst kind — business jargon — declaring that babble about synergies and KPIs can be “confusing or exclusionary”. “In general,” it said primly, “it’s best to use clear and straightforward language that can be easily understood by anyone who is listening or reading”. Quite.
Doctors have known this for years but, like their jargon-spouting corporate counterparts, they keep at it regardless. The study shows how risky this can be. When participants were shown the term: “You will need to be NPO at 8am”, only 11 per cent understood what was meant. But 75 per cent knew exactly what to do if told: “You are to have nothing by mouth after 4pm.”
But it is by no means the first to expose the problem. Other papers from the US and Europe have shown that medical jargon has been confusing cancer patients, diabetes sufferers and the parents of ill children or premature babies for years.The good news is that patient understanding may be starting to improve.
IrishTimes 'The test shows no cancer ' Really not great for an oncologist to tell a patient this when they actually have cancer,even if the IrishMedicalCouncil doesn't seem to have any trouble with non disclosure ? OpenDisclosure CervicalCheck DanielTMurray