5 Simple Tips for Effective Medical Communication

It is a cardinal mistake in many areas of life to assume something without knowing the facts. I found this also to be true when creating a poster presentation.

I assumed I can fit 5 simple tips for effective medical communication on a DIN A1 poster.

Fact: I can’t.

To rectify the situation, I have created this page for a more in-depth look, including examples, into the PAUSE acronym for effective medical communication.

Content overview

• P: Use plain language to describe your data

• A: Arrange your data from the most important to the least important

• U: Define your target audience and craft a user-friendly, tailored response

• S: Be specific in your document

• E: Involve a second pair of eyes and edit your document

Turk and Kirkman gave 1500 scientists two pieces of writing. They were exactly the same, except one used everyday words and short, simple sentences.

Almost 70% preferred to read the plain version. Not only that. They also found it “more stimulating” and “more interesting”.

The study was performed in 1978. Before the internet. Imagine how somebody who interacts with a homepage or chatbot feels about plain language today.

Here is a table with my ten favourite complicated words you can immediately replace with plain words (Table 1).

We all had the pleasure of reading and maybe writing journal manuscripts. And, if you had to write one, you probably followed the familiar, and often required, IMRaD structure (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion).

Busy healthcare professionals and patients, however, don’t usually care about the instructions and methods. They usually want to see the results first to find out if it’s worth their time.

So, unless you are writing a user manual for a medical device, use the inverse pyramid to structure your medical communication.

An easy way to create structure is by using sub-headings. For example, a medical letter for a doctor who treats a patient with drug A induced diarrhoea could be:

1. Immediate actions when your patient has diarrhoea

2. Monitoring of your patient during the treatment with drug A

3. Incidence of diarrhoea in the clinical trials of drug A

4. Prophylaxis of diarrhoea

When it comes to medical writing, regardless of the medium, defining your target audience is the most important step. In fact, it is so important that I should have, following my own advice, put it on top of the list. But then the acronym PAUSE would have failed. I hope my target audience (that’s you) forgives me.

Defining your target audience goes well beyond knowing if you are writing for healthcare professionals or patients. That’s only the first layer. Below you can find five questions I like to ask to further define my target audience, as well as a few possible answers. I like to call this “peeling the audience onion”.

• Question 1: Who is your reader?

• Question 2: What is their goal?

• Question 3: How much do they already know about the subject matter?

• Question 4: Which information sources do they check and trust?

• Question 5: Which device do they use to read medical communication?

Being vague in your document could lead to more questions than answers, which in turn leads to frustration at best – to suboptimal treatment decisions at worst. So, when you are writing your document, be vigilant when it comes to numbers, “umbrella words” and abbreviations.

Communicate numbers precisely

Avoid: “More than 10 patients reported injection-site reactions”. Be specific: “13 patients reported injection-site reactions”.

Avoid “umbrella words”

Often, we tend to use “umbrella words” in medical communication. Words that, with a little extra thought, could be replaced by a better, more specific word. My favourite examples are address, determine, and involve.

Did you

• address answer the question?

• address discuss the issue?

• address solve the problem?

or

• determine ascertain which method is better?

• determine measure acid residues with liquid chromatography?

or did

• monitoring involve include cannulation of the radial artery?

• inhibition of hormone receptors involve cause senescence?

Be careful when using abbreviations

We can abbreviate whatever we like, as long as we define the abbreviation with its first use. But that we can do it doesn’t necessarily mean we should do it all the time. In fact, in the digital space we don’t know what our audience reads first, so the definition can get lost and the reader confused.

• People with a medical background are usually familiar with abbreviations like DNA, kg/m², and kDa. For patients, you may have to explain them.

• Try to avoid potentially misleading abbreviations like BP, MI, and ID.

Here are three guidelines for abbreviations:

• In a sentence: avoid more than one abbreviation.

• In an abstract: avoid abbreviations.

• In a title or heading: avoid abbreviations.

In general, weigh all abbreviations carefully before you use them.

Never, ever publish the first draft of your document!

The page you are looking at certainly isn’t the first version I wrote. In fact, it is safe to assume that every well-written document is at least version five of the first draft.

Jane Smiley beautifully describes first drafts: “Every first draft is perfect because all the first draft has to do is exist.”

And I completely agree. As soon as you finished the first draft let it rest for a night and then edit it, or better yet, let an experienced editor edit it. That doesn’t mean you have to write an entirely new version, but rather that you ask the following questions to improve your document:

• Is my topic clear from the beginning?

• Is my writing unambiguous?

• Does each paragraph and sentence add value?

• Does the important idea stand out clearly?

• Does anything need additional explanation?

• Is everything consistent?

• Are there any errors (punctuation, grammar, spelling, … )?

Here are a few suggestions for editing your document:

Remove words or phrases that don’t add any value to your sentence

Every word your audience has to read and understand consumes energy. Therefore, remove all words that don’t add value to your sentence. Table 2 shows you a few examples.

Check your document for long phrases that can be replaced by one word

There is little that I find as satisfying (when editing) as being able to replace a verbose phrase with one simple word. In Table 3, you will find a few examples of such phrases and their replacement.

Check your document for weak verbs and replace them with strong verbs

Watch out for unnecessary, often wordy, nominalizations: Words that often end with “-ion”. You can usually substitute them with strong verbs. Please find examples in Table 4.

Closing remarks

In the digital world, it is highly improbable that people read until the end of a page. So, thank you very much for doing it. I hope you find these tips useful to increase the effectiveness of your medical communication.

Feel free to share and use everything you see here and please get in touch if you want to discuss anything in more detail.

I hope to see and talk to you soon and wish you all the best.

Manuel

PS: In case you would like to read the poster again, here is a download link of the pdf version.

References:

Taylor RB. Medical Writing - A Guide for Clinicians, Educators, and Researchers. 3rd ed. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG; 2018.

Goodman NW, Edwards MB, Langdon-Neuner E. Medical Writing - A Prescription for Clarity.4th ed. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press; 2014

Cutts M. Oxford Guide to Plain English. 5th ed. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press; 2020.

Albrigthon T. How to write clearly. Write with purpose, reach your reader and ake your meaning crystal clear. 1st ed. United Kingdom: ABC Business Communications Ltd; 2021.

Provost G. 100 Ways To Improve Your Writing. New York, Ny: Berkley; 2019.

Zinsser W. On writing well : the classic guide to writing nonfiction. New York: Harperperennial; 2016.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/812901-every-first-draft-is-perfect-because-all-the-first-draft#:~:text=%E2%80%9CEvery%20first%20draft%20is%20perfect%20because%20all%20the%20first%20draft,would%20be%20to%20NOT%20exist.%E2%80%9D; 30.09.2022

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