Universal Medical English Writing
Have you ever heard of universal medical English writing or universal medical writing? Given the number of people who currently have difficulty understanding medical English writing, shouldn’t there be medical English written with a focus on accessibility for everyone? Unfortunately, this is not the case. While I have never heard of universal medical English writing or universal medical writing, there are many things in this world that I have never heard of. So, I did what I always do and tried Google! There was not a single example of 'universal medical English writing' or 'universal medical writing.'
This may be due to my using the wrong search terms. More likely, however, this may highlight the lack of availability of English medical writing that is accessible to everyone. It appears that society today does not properly emphasize universal medical English writing in spite of the dangers of failing to do so. The newspapers are full of sad stories of patients who could not understand medical English writing and therefore endangered their lives. For instance, a Spanish-speaking woman took a dosage of 11 pills when instructed to “take once daily.” “Once” means “eleven” in Spanish! However, in English, as you know, “take once” means to take only one pill. While this is an extreme example, there are even many native English speakers who have trouble with medical English writing.
The first part of medical English writing, as with any other English writing, is to decide who your audience is. Medical writing needs to consider three audiences: (1) doctors and other medical professionals; (2) well educated readers; and (3) less educated readers. It is fairly easy to write medical English for doctors and other medical professionals. Medical writers are trained to write for doctors and other medical professionals, and they have the knowledge to write for each other. It becomes slightly more challenging to write for educated readers, but it is still not that difficult. With a bit of explanation, they will understand. Writing for less educated readers, however, creates a number of problems.
The first problem is that of professionalism. Good English medical writing should show the reader that the writer is a medical professional and let the reader know that the writing should be taken seriously and read with attention. This means that the medical writer needs to use medical jargon for the reader to take them seriously. This is what makes universal medical English writing difficult. In order for readers, both those with and without education who are not medical professionals, to understand, the good medical writer must translate that medical language into laymen’s terms. This is what I am proposing here. It may not be universal medical English writing, but it is the next best thing.
I would like to present an example (below) that is written both in medical jargon for the professional, as well as in everyday language for the general public. The key to this is in using medical related language that includes informative statements for those without knowledge of medical language. If I write about a presbyopic patient, the average reader will not understand me. If I write about a presbyopic patient, and then add an explanation after it, more people will understand. I might write about a presbyopic patient, one who is experiencing difficulty with accommodating various focal lengths. If the reader understands what a focal length is, this is fine. Some readers will not. However, if they read to the end of the sentence, all will be clear. Normally, I would recommend writing a sentence based on the style in the following example:
A presbyopic patient, one who is experiencing difficulty with accommodating various focal lengths, will often come in to the office with a chief complaint of difficulty in reading menus or small print.
So, if the reader is puzzled by the term, various focal lengths, but continues to read on, the reader will then find a key in the reference to difficulties with reading menus or small print. Thus the reader will understand that the patient is having trouble with short distance focusing. Using this style may not be universal medical English writing, but it will meet the demands of the reading public and they will understand. I recommend you use this style when you are communicating with the general public. After all, if they don’t understand, what is the point of doing medical writing for them?
医学英語翻訳、医学英文校正サービス （ 英文ネイティブチェック ） 等につきましては、代表者連絡先 ： honyaku@excom-system.com までご連絡ください。
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