Today’s message: Avoid medical “fancy talk”– show of erudition.

by William R. Brown, M.D.

Example: The suffix “. . . . ology”denotes a field of study or discipline.
· Fancy: The patients’ symptomatology was (were) headache, fever and chills.
· Correct: The patient’s symptoms were headache, fever and chills.

· Fancy: The etiology of the cirrhosis was chronic hepatitis C infection.
· Correct: The cause of the cirrhosis was chronic hepatitis C infection.

· Fancy: PCR was the methodology used in this study.
· Correct: PCR was the method used in this study.

Dr. Brown is a physician with over 50 years’ experience in patient care. He published over 150 peer-reviewed articles and has been an editorial board member and reviewer for several major medical publications. He has edited hundreds of scientific papers for medical investigators. Many of these papers have been published in prestigious medical journals, such as The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Journal of Immunology, and Nature.

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