In a world where it seems anything and everything offends people, it appears not even medical terms are safe from the PC Police.
Stephen Hughes, a Senior Lecturer at the Angelia Ruskin University in the United Kingdom, claims a number of common medical terms can be deemed sexist, outdated, insensitive and just plain confusing by some doctors and patients.
Writing for The Conversation, the health professional says a number of medical terms are commonly used by GPs and in hospitals need to be updated. He cites a recent article in The Guardian that questioned why female health issues, such as an incompetent cervix or a blighted ovum, never sound as bad as conditions men live with.
As such, Hughes calls for a number of terms to be updated for the benefit of patients. The first on his list is ‘abortion’. Hughes explains that in many cases, doctors add words to the term to describe how a baby has sadly passed away in the womb.
“‘Threatened abortion’, ‘missed abortion’ and ‘septic abortion’ are alarming terms used in the context of miscarriage,” he explains. “For example, a missed abortion is when the foetus has died, but a miscarriage hasn’t occurred yet. Loss of a pregnancy is a sad event. Why make patients sadder?”
Next, Hughes describes cretinism as a “stigmatising term” and says ‘diabetes’ should be retired because it isn’t specific enough to be useful.
“Previously, we had diabetes mellitus and diabetes insipidus,” he notes. “Then we divided diabetes mellitus into types one and two. The Norwegians now tell us that in fact there are five different types, each distinct from one another.”
While cognitive health issues continue to be a major health problem around the world, Hughes claims many professionals still use the word ‘dement’ as an informal way of describing someone with dementia.
“As with cretinism, it is a stigmatising term,” he says. “It should be removed from the medical lexicon.”
He also takes offence to ‘Hartnup disease’ and explains that because it is technically named after a patient and not the doctor who first discovered it, it breaches patient confidentiality. He jokes that because the condition is associated with side effects including lifelong diarrhoea, nasty rashes and psychotic behaviour, it’s easy to understand why Dr Baron chose to name it after his patient.
Bovine cow cough, as it is often called, is also no longer a useful metaphor, Hughes says.
“Increasing urbanisation and improved animal health mean that new entrants to the medical profession are unlikely to have heard a cow cough,” he notes.
He also says that the term ‘acopia’ should be banned, particularly because it’s an ageist word usually to describe a frail old person who can’t cope at home alone. Hughes explains the word is often used in place of a proper stroke, dementia or other age-related diagnosis.
His final recommendations are for health professionals to stop using abbreviations that are confusing for patients to understand. The whole point of abbreviating is to make things easier, but when an abbreviated word actually has several meanings, it can make treating patients more difficult.
Hughes also urges doctors to never use informal and offensive slang on official patient notes and explains it could land doctors in hot water if lawyers ever find them.
“None of this means that we should lose touch with the richness of our past,” he says, noting that Colle’s fracture, Parkinson’s disease and Cock’s peculiar tumour are terms that we should continue to use to be reminded of the progress made in the health profession.