Thread by @QuestionPDX

THREAD: As a health information worker who regularly reviews records involving gender-reassignment patients, I can't stress enough the harm to medical accuracy of neo-pronouns.

Please allow me to elaborate:

#GenderCritical #pronouns #healthcare

The purpose of the medical record is, first and foremost, to ensure the accurate dissemination of information necessary for the continuation of the patient's care.

Neo-pronouns and "nonbinary" theys aren't just annoying; they're potentially harmful.

For example, when records refer to the patient by saying "they is" planning something, the reader instinctively recognizes that as a typo and now wonders, who is planning? The patient? The family? The hospital?

That's actually important to know

But even worse is the tendency to use "they" when there are many potential people in the sentence it could refer to. Example:

"Cardiology will be following up because they failed the medication trial, and they will be calling to schedule..."

Who failed? Who is calling?

In that real-life case (de-identified for HIPAA compliance), what the doctor really meant is that the patient experienced problems with the meds and was supposed to call the cardiologist.

But I guarantee that most people won't read it that way.

The patient who's given this instruction in an after-visit summary, will (rightly) think it refers to someone else's failure, since gender patients are accustomed to suffering the failings of their caregivers.

The medical assistant or other staff, who refer to this language when scheduling their own tasks, will think that it's cardiology who's responsible for calling the patient.

So the patient will wait for a call that's never going to come...

And the staff won't know to call him or her (face it, the patient is actually a male or a female, not a lichen or other sexless collective organism), and will assume that any lack of follow-up is because the cardiologist checked things out and found they were okay.

Worst of all, the cardiologist will never hear from the patient, and will either never know the patient needs help, or will assume he or she is a flake. And may say so in the record. Which will impact the patient's already-low likelihood of receiving fair and compassionate care.

Neo-pronouns are a postmodern invention specifically designed to obfuscate language and confuse meaning.

There is NO ROOM for that in the health record.

Take it from those of us who work with medical records: mistakes and omissions can, and do, kill.

*end*