An open letter

[stephbg]

To the medical imaging profession:

While I appreciate that the use of precise medical terminology is a critical component of your reporting process, it would help if the English bits in between formed some kind of rational sentence structure.

I have my abdominal ultrasound report in front of me. It's missing vital words and can thus be read equally as 'x is present' or 'x is not present'. I read bad technical English for a living, and this is BAD.

On the bright side, analysis of the report suggests the actual test results are more likely to be good for me than bad, but it's not remotely clear on this point.

And while we're at it, copying bits of the 'Findings' section into 'Comment' does not magically render those sentences more readable.

Of course, this is a baseline measure and relatively straightforward. In followup reports I have "the expected acceleration of the increase in diffusion of the shrinkage has decreased faster than expected" to look forward to :-(

Comments

[maharetr.livejournal.com]

The expected acceleration of the increase in diffusion of the shrinkage has decreased faster than expected

The... what?

*is impressed, for all the wrong reasons*

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

That's the kind of language that used to turn up in my brother's brain scan reports.