Respect for patients

SIR – It is the duty of a doctor to use medical terms and to explain them to patients, so that they may be truly empowered and feel directly involved in their own care. In the 15 years since I graduated from medical school, I have not yet had a single patient complain about this approach.

It is with this in mind that I read with dismay the article (February 10) reporting that the Royal College of Midwives, with the approval of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, has decided that the use of medical terms such as “fetal distress” falls under “undesirable” communication.

Women in labour are not deranged, or rendered incapable of understanding complex medical events. Whatever the age of a labouring woman, she is an individual to be respected, and she deserves the correct and accurate information necessary to both comprehend the care she is receiving and to be able to make an informed decision should an intervention be necessary. To do otherwise risks an unwelcome return to the “good old days” of medical paternalism, the likes of which we should have consigned to the scrapheap years ago.

Dr Tarek S Arab

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

SIR – Respect for patients is important, and attitudes towards the elderly in particular, both in the NHS and in the care sector, can be excruciating and demeaning – but it is not usually the senior professionals who are at fault.

Now in my eighties, I have been addressed as “darling”, “sweetheart”, “love” and other terms of unsuitable endearment, usually by nursing assistants or clerical staff. Saying “good girl” to a woman in labour is minor by comparison, but is perhaps the thin end of the wedge.

Dr Robert J Leeming

Coventry, Warwickshire