Reply to health information and using "pee", "poop", etc

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm positive Dr. House started all this!

I was reading about these Tufts U athletes hospitalized for muscle tissue breakdown. Article had a link for the medical term and I checked it out. Went to Cleveland Clinic which provided info about causes, symptoms, prognosis, etc. And consistently referred to the color of one's pee among the signs of the condition.

WTH is wrong with saying "urine" or "feces" or "bowel movement"?  I haven't noticed the word "boob" in such literature but maybe I need to pay more attention. Is "veejay" going to be next when epxlaining pelvic exams???[/quote]

I'm a medical professional, former trial attorney. When I went to trial advocacy school I was urged repeatedly to take the vocabulary down several notches - I have a graduate degree in literature and read most of Dickens before I ever went to college.

Most jurors are at a 6-8th grade vocabulary level. That's the average patient searching online for medical information as well. Some of these people have some college or even a degree, but that was years ago and just like kids over the summer between grades, people don't retain everything they learned. They naturally regress to a mean of communication that is mirrored by their daily relationships and interactions in the world.

Lots of people don't know the words urine and feces. There is nothing wrong with doctors and medical websites using 'pee' and 'poo' to ensure that knowledge is transmitted effectively.

Get off your high horse, poster.[/quote]

The US has an 85% high school graduation rate. Sounds like juries are being selected for a specific reason. [/quote]

I'm not sure what your point is, poster?

Our jury system works very well and in my experience as a criminal trial attorney, it generally draws a random slice of the community with a cross section of life experience. Beyond that, it's the job of the court and lawyers to utilize the voir dire process to weed out biases in jurors. Some jurors will be highly educated

But as far as average education level - yes, we have an 85% high school graduation rate. How many of those people do you think will ever read another book again in their adult life by choice and not because they were required to do so by further education or by an employment requirement?

I recently listened to the podcast "Sold a Story" and was dismayed to learn about the current state of reading education in American public schools. Suffice to say, it is not a good situation.

Here's some random stats from Literacyinc.com:

[quote]15% of the United States population has specific reading disorders.
[b]46% of American adults cannot understand the labels on their pharmaceutical prescriptions.[/b]
56% of young people claim they read fewer than 10 books a year.
[b]50% of U.S. adults are unable to read an eighth grade level book.[/b]
33% of U.S. high school graduates never read a book after high school.
[b]80% of U.S. families have not purchased a book this year.[/b]
50% of books started are never read to completion.
70% of adults have not been in a bookstore in the past five years.
15% of U.S. students are dyslexic.[/quote]

Less than 25% of the US population has completed a bachelor's degree. Less than 15% have completed any advanced degree from MA to MD, JD, PhD.

People who finished high school and then never picked up another book the rest of their adult life except perhaps the holy book at their house of worship are just not very well read and need to have information presented at a middle school level at best. And no, online resources for medical information is not the appropriate place to be attempting to change this reality; the role of the technical writer is to meet the reader where s/he is at and maximize effective communication of essential information.[/quote]

My point is that despite the increases in "educational attainment," there has been a decrease in literary proficiency starting in the 1970s. Given that mathematical education has always lagged behind, the average high school graduate in the US has an eight grade reading level and fifth grade mathematics proficiency. Perhaps we could educate the citizens instead of regressing to the mean?[/quote]

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