Words Matter: The Power of Inclusive Language in Medicine

As healthcare professionals, you will be called on to continue learning and growing for the duration of your career. Yes, you’ll know more as a seasoned worker than someone fresh out of school. However, you will also build up automatic responses and—yes, it happens even to the best of us—blind spots.

One of the blind spots that doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers have started to notice in their work is inclusivity. Inclusivity means providing equal treatment to people who might otherwise be excluded. From the most recent Future of Nursing Report to our webinar with Osmosis’ own Dr. Marina Horiates Kerekes, we are examining the ways in which access to healthcare, and the treatment received by various populations, has not been equitable, despite our best intentions.

One of the most important aspects of inclusivity is the language we use when interacting with patients and their families. From intake to discharge to continued communication with patients, the word choices that healthcare workers use can define the experience and have a serious impact on health outcomes.

So, what does inclusive language in healthcare look like? Read on for some insight into the power of our words to influence health. We’ll explore the following topics:

Start with the heart
Why inclusive language matters
How Osmosis works to promote inclusive language in healthcare
Important questions answered
Where to find more resources

Start with the heart

As the nurse, physician, or emergency provider in medical situations, you will often be looked to set the tone of each interaction. This starts with the very first contact you have with a patient and those around them. Every individual deserves to feel acknowledged and respected, especially by those who will hold their life in their hands.

To respond to this responsibility, take some time to understand equity and inclusion in our society in general. A good exercise is to acknowledge your own identity as fully as possible. Consider filling out the following list:

Gender
Sexual orientation
Culture
Religion
Socioeconomic status
Disability
Addiction
Weight

For each category, identify ways that your identity may have provided you with beneficial treatment. Then, identify ways that your identity may create certain barriers to some aspects of your life.

While these identities and their effects will not be uniform across the board, studies show that disparities in the way groups of people are treated in society have deep-seated effects on the long-term health, education, and socioeconomic outlook for individuals in those groups. This might seem obvious to you in your day-to-day life, but you might also be surprised to find that some of the phrases you use on a regular basis, like, “that’s crazy,” “they are hysterical,” or calling a group of women “guys,” are rooted in historical discrimination. Language’s power runs so deep, we often don’t even realize it.

So if your first reaction to hearing about inclusive language is disdain, check in with your heart. As a physician or nurse, you’ll be charged with caring for people at their most vulnerable moments. Your medical knowledge must respond upon command. Your language should become second nature in the same way. The kind of change that is needed starts on an individual level—with me, and with you.

Why inclusive language matters

Have you ever had an experience where you felt invisible? This may have happened when you went to a party and no one greeted you, or tried out a new club but everyone there knew each other already and you felt left out. Did you feel lonely, isolated, disrespected?

What if this is how a patient feels when they are being treated by a physician? What if the patient explains their symptoms and pain level, only to be discounted, misinterpreted, and ultimately assessed poorly by their doctor? The actual isolation and disregard experienced by the patient may lead to incorrect treatment and ultimate loss of faith in the medical establishment.

According to the CDC, “in the United States, Blacks, Hispanics, American Indians/Alaska Natives, Asians, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders (NHOPIs) bear a disproportionate burden of disease, injury, premature death, and disability.” This disproportionate burden can lead to lower quality of life, life expectancy, socioeconomic status, and will perpetuate an inequitable and unjust system.

As you have learned, good health includes more than a functioning body. Emotional and mental health contributes to our well-being. And it has been shown that the words we use to acknowledge patients can bolster or undermine the care that they receive. Language matters.

What is Osmosis doing to promote inclusive language in healthcare?

Here at Osmosis, we’re taking the idea of inclusive language very seriously. We’ve come up with a few ways to practice what we preach and share our findings with you.

Firstly, we have created a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) committee. This is a group of experts from a broad range of specialties as well as diverse backgrounds. The committee is charged with some important tasks:

Serves as a Consultant/Helper for individual teams on DEI-related projects to help advance the DEI objectives
Fields concerns and feedback related to DEI and own follow-up, problem-solving, and escalating as needed
Plans, leads, and organizes trainings, education, and empathy-building events for the company on DEI topics
Proactively surveys the company on topics related to DEI to discover blind spots and areas for improvement and propose solutions to leadership”

We are also going back and reviewing our content—and that is a lot of content. We have specifically trained our reviewers to edit content and marketing materials with inclusive language in mind. They are a great group of writers and editors who will keep the scintillating feel of our content while upholding Osmosis’ values and intentions.

We’re also doing what we do best by creating new content all the time with these values and intentions in mind. There are a few articles and videos below from Osmosis focusing on inclusive language.

Important questions about this issue

Some great questions came up in Dr. Kerekes’ webinar, as well as in our discussions around this topic. Here are just a few frequently asked questions about inclusive language.

If you make statements genderless, doesn’t it dehumanize the patient, or sound overly cold or clinical?

This is a great question and commonly asked when discussing this issue. Dr. Kerekes recommends sticking to genderless language during the physical exam in order to keep the data as objective as possible. When addressing the patient themself, use their preferred gender identifiers warmly and openly.

Do people who are exposed to racism have a higher risk of getting sick?

Evidence has shown that people from underserved populations do indeed have a higher risk of illness as well as a poorer health outcome than someone from the “dominant” race or class. That’s one reason why this small change of inclusive language can help make a huge difference in our society.

How can I learn more and practice inclusive language?

That’s the spirit! There is plenty to learn and there are many ways to grow into this practice. First, check out Dr. Kerekes’ webinar. She discusses some very important topics in detail, but some specific aspects to underline are:

Specificity of language
Patient identifiers
Systematic review of implicit bias

There are great guides to learning and incorporating inclusive language. Here are just a couple to check out:

Northwestern Family Guide – Inclusive Language Guide

Advisory Board – Incorporating Inclusive Language

In addition, keep that openness of spirit and mind that led you to want to become a healthcare professional in the first place. This will be a lifelong project for many of us. Seek out others who are working on this issue and see how you can team up to support one another in the practice.

Powerful words make powerful change

Many institutions—including medical schools, hospitals, and healthcare organizations—are just starting to understand the complexity of inequity in healthcare. Using inclusive language in healthcare can help reduce stigma, address social determinants of health, and improve health outcomes. All of this can lead to a decrease in inequitable treatment for patients—and society as a whole. Join us in this work and see the change grow!

Osmosis resources

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