If I ever wanted to start a cult, I think I’d follow the acculturation techniques I’ve been subjected to in med school. It’s only been two weeks and I’ve already used “superior mediastinum” and “jugular notch” twice in two conversations with friends. That was a pretty quick conversion.

I’m still at a stage where I can appreciate being a non-medical person, but can just barely see my future as a physician as well. I’m both doctor and patient. In a class on good communication, we were warned about using medical lingo with patients–to avoid it, and be conscious of it, because it will happen, and it can be intimidating, frightening, and confusing to patients. The best analogy that I can make is a discussion of cars or sports–two areas in which I have almost no knowledge. If a mechanic were to tell me my car had some sort of serious problem, dealing with anything from the carburetor to the spark plugs, I’d be utterly lost, leaving it up to trusting my mechanic to do the right thing (and not rip me off for it). The same with sports. Whenever my friends start talking about if I “saw that last game” or talk about a player, or, like last night, I land on the green spot in Trivial Pursuit, I’m completely lost. I generally nod my head, or admit defeat (and plead complete ignorance). I think it’s probably similar for a patient to be told about some condition they have that’s as hard to spell as it is to pronounce.

But then the medical side of me starts to kick in. Like in the conversation I had with my friends, it really *is* easier to talk about certain parts of the body if you know their names. Or it’s even easier to use the anatomical terms–when I tried to explain what the “superior mediastinum” actually is , I caught myself wanting to describe it as “the part of your body that’s deep to your sternum.”

I guess it’s something to be conscious of, and try to avoid; the sooner I start learning how to translate from Doc Talk to English, the better. (Then again, I guess I should probably learn how the medical lingo first.) Communication’s clearly vital between physician and patient, for a number of reasons: patient adherence to the plan that the patient and physician create, litigation, autonomy… the list goes on and on.

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