Simple-minded medical professional to layperson translator

July 14, 2023 11:10 AM

I'm a big fan of the accuracy of medical language but there are times when a naive translation would be a helpful orientation before reading the actual document.

For example, something that would take:

Additionally there is suggested at least partial tear of the superior aspect of the subscapularis with mild subluxation at the superior aspect of the long head of the biceps tendon.

and spit out

Additionally there is suggested at least a partial tear of the upper part of the rotator cuff with mild dislocation at the top of the upper part of the biceps tendon.

I can understand why people are reluctant to provide a translator like this due to the inevitable inaccuracies, but having the latter text would give me a serious leg up on reading the original.

Obviously I can and do look up every term one by one (arriving at the same level of inaccuracy), but something I could feed a PDF to would be useful. I'm hoping someone with better Google skills can turn one up.

posted by Tell Me No Lies to Science & Nature (6 answers total)

Best answer: AI. I asked Chat GPT to explain and it gave a long explanation, including "In summary, the findings suggest that there is a partial tear in the upper part of the subscapularis muscle in your shoulder. Additionally, there is a mild displacement or shifting of the long head of the biceps tendon at the top part of the shoulder joint. These findings indicate some damage and possible instability in these structures."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:42 AM on July 14, 2023

Best answer: I ran your example through Chat GPT and told it to use common names instead of medical terms and it came up with basically the same thing that you want.
posted by jonathanhughes at 11:42 AM on July 14, 2023

Best answer: Regarding ChatGPT:

I've seen several things recently that indicate that even doctors think ChatGPT is better than doctors for things like this, both in terms of "bedside manner" and (surprisingly) accuracy. So yeah, sounds like a good idea to run it past ChatGPT.

However, please understand that ChatGPT can easily get things not just wrong, but very, very wrong -- along the lines of "Yes, I can explain to you why eight is bigger than nine" -- and in a medical context, that can be extremely dangerous. So, if you choose to use it, please remember to use it as a starting point to your investigation of what all this jargon means, not as an unquestionable source of truth.
posted by Flunkie at 2:45 PM on July 14, 2023 [5 favorites]

I took a course at my local community college called “medical terminology,” which was designed to provide an overview of medical vocabulary for people going into medical receptionist or billing/coding positions. If you could find a textbook for a similar course on eBay or Amazon, that would get you a long ways without using chatGPT.
posted by ActionPopulated at 2:55 PM on July 14, 2023

Best answer: ChatGPT does useful things when you use a structure like:
Explain "the thing" like I'm five.
Explain "the thing" like I'm ten.
Explain "the thing" to a teenager.
Rephrase "the thing" for someone with a third-grade reading level.
Rephrase "the thing" for an intelligent adult in simple language.
Rephrase "the thing" in layman's terms.
Paraphrase "the thing" without medical terminology.
Paraphrase "the thing" for an intelligent adult without medical terminology.
Rewrite "the thing" in simple sentence structure.
Rewrite "the thing" in short, simple sentences.

ChatGPT can be an effective tool when your intent is to tone down the language while you're actively reading and comparing it with the original.

You'd really need to play with it and see what level you were comfortable with.
A side note:
Using the prompt
>> Acting as a ten year old, explain "the thing"
gives an understandable, simple result... but after I tired of being amused by it, it would be painful to use as a study tool.
posted by stormyteal at 1:49 PM on July 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I gotta say I was very reluctant to accept ChatGPT as the best way to do this, but practically speaking it’s working out pretty well.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:13 PM on July 21, 2023