“To be a good diagnostician, a physician needs to acquire a large set of labels for diseases, each of which binds an idea of the illness and its symptoms, possible antecedents and causes, possible developments and consequences, and possible interventions to cure or mitigate the illness. Learning medicine consists in part of learning the language of medicine. A deeper understanding of [medicine] requires a richer vocabulary than is available in everyday language.”

 

—Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

 

The people behind Medymology believe learning and teaching medicine should be as intuitive as possible. Much of that intuition begins with language. This often means that the medical lexicon should make sense; however, health practitioners are using discourse that was coined thousands of years ago, which frequently stem from Greek and Latin roots. These antiquated roots don't lend their meaning so easily to the modern health sciences student, which unsurprisingly impedes the learning and teaching process. Medymology is all about paying homage to medical forebearers that originally named much of the medical terminology we use today, but we need tools to reconnect to them and pick up where they left off—Medymology aspires to do just that. What's more, by using Medymology, we hope the present and future healthcare providers create a habit out of simplifying their language outside of their medical discourse community. Too often are medical providers under the curse of knowledge: subconsciously making assumptions about the health literacy of their patients and using the same medical verbiage they might use with a colleague. This manifests as poor communication with patients and may lead to poor patient outcomes. In this way, Medymology aspires not only to simplify the learning and teaching process, but also to extend itself into the patient-provider relationship.

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