What’s your health care language pet peeve?

February 16, 2025 Check out STAT+

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By Torie Bosch First Opinion editor

I've been ranting a bit on STAT Slack this week about a new linguistic pet peeve. I hope to subject you to that after I do a little more thinking about it. In the meantime, I want to hear from you: Besides the great health care vs. healthcare debate, what is your pet peeve when it comes to the language of medicine and life sciences? Recommendation of the week: I've just started "Apple Cider Vinegar" on Netflix, and I hope to finish it this weekend. It's the (somewhat) true story of Belle Gibson, the Australian scammer who became a social media celebrity after claiming she beat terminal cancer with healthy eating and alternative medicine. Of course, she never had cancer to begin with. If you want more on the real story, listen to one of my favorite podcasts, "Swindled," which did an enraging episode on Gibson.

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