The gown card reads “degrees of separation in how we talk among health care workers-how we talk to patients”.
Medspeak can be brutal.
This is our black humor that being used as a coping mechanism for as long as there have been healthcare workers talking.
You remember Hawkeye and Trapper used to talk over the wounded on the M*A*S*H television show. They would joke and tell tall tales and try to solve the war’s problems over the open cavity of a wounded soldier. But when they were actually talking to the patients the tone was different? Yeah, like that.
In the unit lounges the conversation about a situation can be salty and a little, okay, definitely not safe for work.
In the lounge the conversation can be about the full moon. “How shitty do you think tonight is gonna be?”
Someone else answers “Well, Dr. Doom is on call.”
To which the original speaker replies “Oh, fuck. There goes the shift.”
On the phone to the waiting room, the conversation can go like this- HCW to patient’s family member, “Dr. Doom wanted me to call and update you. Unfortunately there was a complication during surgery. Your loved one is fine but recovery/surgery/time in hospital may be extended. Dr. Doom is doing everything he can to make sure the surgery is a success. But right now your loved one is stable and doing okay.”
You know in the operating room, the same HCW turned to the others in the room and used some very nice language when the stapler misfired. Or the surgical site was so packed in with scar tissue, the field looked like the Gordian Knot and no Alexander the Great was available to solve it. But the knot has to be unpicked carefully.
The two are not even the same.
Use your words, people. Be kind, but factual.
There is a time and a place for medspeak. And an audience.
Choose the time carefully.
When speaking to family, choose your words carefully.
Do not offer hope, instead speak carefully of complications but assure them that everything is being done to assist their family member. Speak about how good the surgeon is, no matter how you feel about them.
Do not tell family members details when there is a complication. Use broad language that reassures.
Do not overwhelm them with medspeak words they don’t understand.
Because, regardless of the outcome, the family will remember how they were updated.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 