Jargon busters
Researchers are worried that medical mumbo jumbo hurts recovery. What happens when medical reports are rewritten in easy-to-understand, reassuring ways?
False familiarity can be a dangerous thing. Take, for example, the word ‘tear’. Depending on the context in which you read that particular configuration of letters, you’re likely to assume it means one of two things: a salty droplet running down your cheek, or ripping, shredding, “tearing to pieces”. Let’s say you encounter the word in a medical report. Something along the lines of: “the scan s...