Stop Talking ‘Dirty’: Clinicians, Language, and Quality of Care for the Leading Cause of Preventable Death in the United States

A new editorial in the American Journal of Medicine makes the case for practitioners treating substance use disorders to watch their language, because, as it turns out, words really do matter.

Stop Talking ‘Dirty’: Clinicians, Language, and Quality of Care for the Leading Cause of Preventable Death in the United States

A patient with diabetes has “an elevated glucose” level. A patient with cardiovascular disease has “a positive exercise tolerance test” result. A clinician within the health care setting addresses the results. An “addict” is not “clean” he has been “abusing” drugs and has a “dirty” urine sample. Someone outside the system that cares for all other health conditions addresses the results. In the worst case, the drug use is addressed by incarceration.

Read the full editorial HERE.