Samuel Beckett, a Nobel Laureate in literature from Ireland, produced some of his work in the French language. What may seem odd is that this highly gifted linguist subsequently found it difficult to translate his own material into English, his native language. Apart from variations in vocabulary that distinguish one language from another, even within the same one, communication impediments may arise.

Depending on their level of health literacy, patients can be at a disadvantage in understanding terminology and jargon used by clinicians. Superimposed on differences in understanding spoken and written words is the impact semiotics has on the process of communication in the form of facial gestures, tone of voice, clothing (e.g., white coats worn by health professionals signifying knowledge authority status), and personal appearance (e.g., age, gender, race/ethnicity, body weight, and presence of tattoos and piercings).

Hundreds of millions of interactions occur between clinicians and patients in the U.S. each year, and the quality of the experiences shared by them will help to govern what eventually transpires in the form of beneficial health outcomes. For example, an evaluation of patient–reported outcome measures (PROMs) that appeared on April 15, 2019 in the journal Cancer indicated that more than half of the most commonly used cancer PROMs do not meet plain‐language best practices. This finding may have implications for the quality of care, safety, and experience/satisfaction involving patients characterized by low health literacy.

Access to electronic health records has made it possible for patients to review information written about them. Nevertheless, depending on the branch of health care involved, there is ample room for misinterpretation. Sociolinguistic differences between patients and clinicians can lead to variable misunderstandings of written words that may limit patients’ engagement in their own health care. That outcome should come as no surprise because even within the professional community itself, a veritable Tower of Babel may exist. As an illustration, a radiologist might communicate imaging results to other members of the health care team using terms, such as “probably represents,” which in turn could be interpreted differently by referring clinicians.

Interprofessional education and practice currently is a topic of considerable interest and importance in health care. Data reported on March 22, 2019 in the Journal of Interprofessional Care reveal, however, that there was little consistency in the terminology used by accreditors to describe the learning outcomes that healthcare professions educational programs were expected to embrace. A conclusion reached was that inconsistency in terminology across accreditors found in this study is a clear impediment to healthcare professions educational programs creating a shared mental model for their IPE outcomes. A risk is that until accreditation bodies agree to one such model for all aspects of education, IPE may continue to be perceived by students as an ‘add-on’ to their curricula rather than as an integral part of becoming a health professional.

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LANGUAGE TRANSMISSION AND TRANSLATION

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