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Evolving Terminology: Gender, Race, and More
language to ensure accuracy. Assessing the recipient’s level of understanding and providing additional explanations or information can help facilitate effective communication. By actively listening, adapting the language, and being mindful of any potential offense, healthcare professionals can promote clearer communication, enhance patient understanding, and foster positive relationships among colleagues and patients. Ultimately, prioritizing plain language in healthcare communication contributes to better patient outcomes, increased collaboration, and improved overall healthcare experiences.
Ananya Vasudevan Dhanesh Binda Rafael Ortega
Learning Objectives 1. Discuss the evolving terminology that patients use for their identities.
2. Explore examples of pronouns, race, and other terms in the context of medical care. 3. Develop a framework to manage situations in which unwelcome terms are used.
Introduction In the complex healthcare environment of the United States, patients often receive care from multiple practitioners, including physicians, nurses, social workers, and others. To ensure holistic care, each team member should receive the same information regarding every patient, and all team members should be able to communicate effectively with one another. Ensuring clear, appropriate, and thoughtful communication enables the successful coordination of care and avoidance of potential errors. Targeted interprofessional communication training can facilitate more effective communication that reduces preventable adverse events and increases patient safety. Miscommunication between healthcare providers and patients can occur in various contexts and may involve a patient’s pronouns, race, ethnicity, or other evolving terminology. Such discordances may negatively impact care and potentially harm patients. Thus, understanding the evolving social lexicon is critical for establishing and developing trusting relationships between clinicians and their patients, as well as colleagues. Respectful and clear communication between healthcare providers and patients facilitates accurate diagnosis and optimal treatment. Patients who maintain open communication with their
providers, particularly in areas such as sexual orientation, gender identity, and ethnicity, are more likely to disclose the intricacies of their medical history. Patients who openly discuss their medical challenges with their healthcare providers tend to foster improved communication. This mutual trust between patients and providers can result in more informed decisions and an increased likelihood of patients adhering to recommended treatments. Of note, the terminology used to refer to and address patients in a broad range of situations is rapidly expanding. Even healthcare providers who make a deliberate effort to use appropriate vocabulary may inadvertently use disfavored or outdated terms. Minimizing such incidents requires diligence to stay up to date with terminology, and develop an awareness regarding the evolving connotations of certain terms. To address this need, many institutions have developed glossaries of relevant terminology. For instance, Boston University Medical Campus describes its “Race, Racism, and Anti-Racism Glossary” as a “living language guide” to emphasize the plasticity of the included definitions to broaden diversity, equity, and inclusion. The terms described include acronyms, such as “BIPOC” (Black, Indigenous, and People Of Color), neologisms such as “Latinx”, and interchangeable adjectives such as “conscious” or “explicit” when referring to bias.
Suggested Reading 1
Farahani, M. A., Sahragard, R., Carroll, J. K., & Mohammadi, E. (2011). Communication barriers to patient education in cardiac inpatient care: A qualitative study of multiple perspectives. International Journal of Nursing Practice, 17(3), 322–328. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1440- 172x.2011.01940.x 2 Links, A. R., Callon, W., Wasserman, C., Walsh, J., Beach, M. C., & Boss, E. F. (2019). Surgeon use of medical jargon with parents in the outpatient setting. Patient Education and Counseling, 102(6), 1111–1118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. pec.2019.02.002 3 Schyve, P. M. (2007). Language differences as a barrier to quality and safety in health care: The Joint Commission Perspective. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 22(S2), 360–361. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s11606-007- 0365-3 4 Sudore, R. L., Landefeld, C. S., Pérez-Stable, E. J., Bibbins- Domingo, K., Williams, B. A., & Schillinger, D. (2009). Unraveling the relationship between literacy, language proficiency, and patient–physician communication. Patient Education and Counseling, 75(3), 398–402. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.pec.2009.02.019
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EVOLVING TERMINOLOGY 89
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