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Helen Salisbury: Careless communication costs lives

Most patients want to know “What have I got? Why? What next?”—and doctors spend a lot of time explaining diagnosis, cause, treatment, and prognosis. An important part of our medical training is learning to translate our technical knowledge into everyday language that will mean something to our patient. One tool we use is analogy—comparing atherosclerotic arteries to furred-up pipes, or conjuring images of battles between immune defences and invading pathogens.

Analogies are useful, but we should be wary of stretching them too far. Comparing statins to limescale remover, or antimicrobial drugs to cleaning products, can lead to dangerous misunderstandings. …