Why is medical jargon used by health care professionals?

Question

What are the advantages and disadvantages? For the health care professional and the patient.

Would be glad to hear anyones opinions.

I am a nursing student and have been asked to write an essay about my level of communication and how i have interacted it whilst on clinical placements.

Answer 1

Jargon is used in every field from the telephone company to rocket science. I'm a behavior analyst and struggle constantly with translating from our scientific lingo to "plain English" for those with different training.

Jargon allows people in a certain field to speak succinctly, clearly and accurately to each other, but those who are well-versed in jargon often run into a problem when they have to explain what they're doing to someone who is not part of their field. My father once took a computer course (in the mid-1990s) from a computer geek who could only speak computer geek lingo. Here was my Dad who had never sat before a computer in his life, and the guy tells the class, "Okay, boot up your hard drive and I'll show you how to format a disc." When Dad asked him what he meant, the guy got angry. Today when computers are so user friendly my Dad is still avoiding learning to use one, thanks to that guy and his inability to translate jargon for someone who had no understanding of it.

Jargon involves both abbreviations and technical terms that are precisely defined within the field. It also involves terms that just develop over time among the people who work together and become part of the culture of that field. My mother worked at the phone company back when it was only one company, and her descriptions of her work day often sounded like a strange code to the rest of the family!

I'd say the biggest disadvantage is remembering how to speak to those who don't speak the jargon. And the biggest advantage is that it lets people who know the jargon speak to each other more precisely and succinctly than they can without the jargon.

Answer 2

medical jargon spoken by health care professionals tends to be easier for the health care provider to understand such as QDS = four times a day. the health care professional has to learn the jargon first but then it proves easier because the whole profession use it.

there are disadvantages as one saying may mean two or three different things as i could say I.T. to someone and they think there is a problem with the computer but i am saying they need to have something done intrathecally. the patients tend to not understand if you use medical jargon so if you used it to explain something they may not comprehend what is going on.

I tend to use jargon when speaking to peers but to patients and their families i try not to put jargon into my communication.

the problem is not only do doctors speak medical jargon so do the nurses and the pharmacists in hospital.

medical jargon is used sometimes for confidetiality reasons when medical professionals are handing over something and don't want the other families to know, they either abbreviate the problem or use the jargon term for the condition.

plus half the time people don't realise that they are speaking in jargon with the families because they are constantly speaking in that fashion with their peers.

Answer 3

Medical jargon is a kind of oneupsmanship used more by doctors than by nurses. I think they often use it to justify the rates they charge (lawyers are guilty of the same thing). "I had to go to school for a long time to learn all this jargon, and the fact that you don't understand it just shows how superior I am to you." Nurses are more likely to show compassion to the patient, and part of this compassion is not leaving patients in the dark about their condition.

As for why this is beneficial, informed patients can do much to contribute to their own care and improvement. In an informational vacuum, the imagination will often paint the disease as worse than it is, and when hope dies, sometimes the patient does too.

To paraphrase Langston Hughes:

Hold onto hope
For if hopes die
Life is like a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to hope
For when hopes go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Answer 4

Medical jargon in health care in a nessesity. Healthcare is so high tech, it is over the scope of knowledge most people have in the general poulation. The medical termininology is understood clearly and consisely in the medical community which is what is most important.
The more you read and the more you study in your nursing career, your understanding will become clearer and you will be able to understand why it is so important to healthcare professionals to use medical terminology and jargon.
I am an RN and I am so happy you chose to be one.

Answer 5

Medical Jargon is simply like learning a different language.
Advantages are that the doctor/nurse can quickly describe a patient condition without to much contents. ie the patient is dyspnoeic, tachycardic, with bilateral rales - translated = difficulty breathing, with a fast heart and noisy lung sounds on both sides. The latter takes longer to say. Another advantage is where a patient condition is serious and you dont neccesarily want to frighten the patient to much while you are discussing the case with another doctor
The main disadvantage is that the doctor/nurse would forget the patients inability to understand the language and not explain things in laymans terms to a patients.

Answer 6

U have to take medical research to learn about the human body alive as well as deceased. If u didn't have the medical research how are u going to be able to diagnose someone with a really serious disorder. It's just like psychiatric hours, u have to do so many hours in mental hospital to learn in case u have to work there in the future. Good Luck!!! I am a nurse also and u most have medical research.

Answer 7

I don't think I've ever had a doctor use jargon on me, they usually just explain what is happening and what they are doing. I don't know, maybe they did use their "medical terms" and I just didn't even listen to it because I didn't know what it meant.

Answer 8

Its a fact Emma nobody speaks plain English nowadays - what with all the P.C. rubbish and Management Speak - they always say things like "at this moment in time it is necessary to uplift detritus from office establishments to comply with health and safety regulations" - in other words "empty the bins". This gobbledeegook is meted out by the likes of uneducated twits like John Prescott.

Answer 9

I'm not sure what the advantages are but i do know the disadvantage to the patients...patients don't always understand what is being told to them, but because they don't want to look like an idiot they don't ask questions a lot of the time. therefore they treat the problem incorrectly. i know i have had this happen to me, but i have started to ask questions even when the doctor didn't want to answer them... i have found by doing this a lot of the time the doctor didn't really know what the problem was, but didn't want to just say that.

Answer 10

What do you mean by "jargon"? How else are they going to communicate?