Everyone involved in a profession has a technical vocabulary. It is one of the distinctives of a profession. Anyone with less than three years of Latin has felt the frustration of dealing with the legal profession. Even the automobile mechanic has a technical vocabulary. You have to admire the medical profession for over the years it has refused to compromise its vocabulary. People complain that the medical doctors speak four-syllable words that they do not understand, but the doctors keep right on doing it. People have gotten so tired of being in the dark that they have begun to learn those terms. As a result, people are becoming more sophisticated today when it comes to technical terms and that is good! Now it seems that we chiropractors are trying to take an intelligent public in the other direction. We either talk to them in one and two syllable words and insult their intelligence or we try to conform chiropractic to fit the medical vocabulary with which they are already acquainted. It is time we wiped the slate clean and began to teach people our technical terms. Chiropractic is a simple principle, easily understood. There is no reason why any patient cannot understand our technical vocabulary. How many patients have even heard, let alone know the meaning of, the following chiropractic terms: adaptation, analysis, coordination, dis-ease, educated brain, innate intelligence, mental impulse, subluxation, survival value, or universal intelligence.
What will be the results of beginning to use a technical vocabulary?
1. It will give the patient more respect for you as a professional and you are a professional. Talk like one.
2. It will make you a better chiropractor. Human beings tend to rise to the level of their thinking. You can only think within the confines of your vocabulary. Limited vocabulary – limited thinking; more highly technical vocabulary – more highly technical thinking – a more highly technical chiropractor.
3. It will make the patient a better and more knowledgeable patient. After all, isn’t that what chiropractic is all about, getting people to understand the Big Idea?
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