Going to the doctor can be a challenging experience for any number of reasons–the tests, the physical exam, the news, the diagnosis, the bill–but you should at least be able to understand what your doctor is saying to you. Yet, medical jargon seems to be a necessary evil that patients and caregivers deal with on a regular basis. If you think...
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Most people would say that going to the doctor is stressful. You’re there because you don’t feel your best; you’re poked with needles and prodded with questions. You’re worried about what the doctor will find and what she will tell you. You’re concerned that you’ll forget to tell your doctor something important or not remember what your doctor...
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The first post on compliance and adherence discussed the power of the words “compliance” and “adherence”, the history of their use and the negative impact these words have on people with chronic conditions. T1 HATE hate hate hate the word “adherence.” Makes pts who cannot follow instructions to the letter seem like...
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In 2007 Scott Haig, an orthopedic surgeon, wrote “When a patient is a Googler” which was published in Time Magazine. He describes a patient that he names Susan, the “queen of Googlers.” “Every doctor knows patients like this. They’re called ‘brainsuckers.'” His article praises patients that are nurses and...
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Deep Breathing Time Again… We’re about to seek the answer to another of the numbers that health and medical professionals use daily from statistics. Are you ready? Here it goes… What does Prevalence Rate in Statistics Mean? The prevalence rate is the total number of cases of a disease in a specific population divided by the total number of people...
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Ready to play Hide and Seek? Or are you just ready to hide? Most people feel like hiding when faced with the numbers that health and medical professionals use daily, statistics. So we’re going to start slowly and cover different mathematical concepts you might have heard. This will be a series of posts so if there are any math concepts that you...
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Not with these trials. Clinical trials are scientific studies conducted to discover improved ways to treat, prevent, diagnose or screen for diseases. Clinical trials are either observational or interventional. Observational trials are like longitudinal studies. Interventional trials are the ones in which individuals are assigned to control or...
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“Do you suffer from epitaxis?” When doctors use difficult words to describe common problems, like nose bleeds, it can be distressing for patients. Why do doctors do this? Imagine going to college for four years, working exclusively on science and math. Then, throughout the four years in medical school, they learn a whole new language. Upon...
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A recent study by researchers at Loyola University found that as many as 63% of prostate cancer websites cannot be read or understood by someone who hasn’t completed high school education. Why is this important? Well, one of the study’s references suggests that as many as 90 million adult Americans have literacy skills that test below high school...
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