Cure vs. treat: the Babel problem in rare disease language

Language. There are a few words in medicine that seem simple until you say them out loud in front of the wrong audience. In rare disease clinics, two of them are cure and treat.  We use them constantly, sometimes interchangeably, and rarely stop to ask what they do to hope, to expectations, and to the quiet contract between clinicians and families. In rare disease, language is not a neutral medium. It is an intervention.

Continue reading