Avoid jargon.

I feel like this was the very first lesson I learned as an intern, and it’s certainly the hallmark of every communication 101 lecture. Avoid medical jargon. I once read that medical students learn close to 15,000 new words over their four years of training. I’m not sure if this is an accurate estimation, but even if it’s off by a degree or two, that’s still a staggering number of words your patient probably won’t know. It’s also important to remember that your patients will have varying levels of education from postdoctoral and medical degrees to almost no formal education at all.

Your best bet is to avoid jargon completely. Instead of “tachycardia” say “fast heart beat.” Instead of “elevated BUN/Creatinine” say “your kidneys aren’t working as well as they should” or more directly “your kidneys are failing.”

But the idea of avoiding medical jargon doesn’t stop at avoiding technical words or abbreviations like tachycardia and BUN. It extends to conceptual jargon as well. Here’s an example: often I’ll hear our residents, when trying to map values, say “so, we’d like to know… what are your goals of care?”

Patients and family members usually respond with a big question mark. What does “goals of care” even mean? I certainly have no idea. It’s conceptual jargon that often goes way over our patients’ heads, and of course is entirely subjective and individualized.

So instead, simplify your language. Avoid conceptual jargon completely. Instead of “what are your goals of care” ask “what’s most important to you” or “what are you hoping for?”

Save the big words for Scrabble.