Abstract
One of the aims of NM is to remove the background ‘noise’ from healthcare communication to capture the authentic signal feelings, hopes and thoughts of the patient. The noise we refer to here is related to the excessive use of technology. Certainly, the application of technology in medicine has been beneficial; however, it is being used when not required, diverting the physicians’ attention from other more appropriate tools available for understanding the human nature and illness. Whenever healthcare providers are unable to listen to their patients and speak to them in a constructive manner, technology creeps up time and again as if it were a Pavlovian automatism. In fact, when we analyse the language spoken by physicians during medical consultations, we most often encounter technical jargon made up of complex terms, which the patient can rarely comprehend or relate to.
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Marini, M.G. (2019). Narrative Medicine Encounters on Language and Linguistics: Natural Semantic Metalanguage and the Role of Universal Words in Health and Illness. In: Languages of Care in Narrative Medicine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94727-3_2
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