Jeff LangmaidFounder, The Evidence Based Chiropractor

Stop Speaking Over Your Patients

14 Jun 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:52

In this segment Jeff Langmaid emphasizes the importance of using positive, natural, clear, and simple language when communicating with patients. He critiques the tendency of clinicians to overuse technical, insider jargon—language that belongs in documentation rather than patient conversations—arguing that it hinders care by speaking over patients. Langmaid illustrates his point with the metaphor of a 1,000‑mile journey: patients often start at the first step, and if clinicians jump ahead several steps, patients cannot keep up. Effective communication, like effective care, should progress one step at a time, matching the patient’s current understanding.

Chapters

You know, when we talk about wording and things like that, this isn't about being like weird or scripted or over the top. It's really just about having positive natural communication and also clear and simple communication. I actually find many docs overdo it, meaning there's just like way too much. There's like technical inside baseball kind of language that should go in your documentation but is not relevant to how normal people communicate in the real world. And that's a hindrance to your care if you're speaking over your patient, right? I always just think of the old statement, you know, journey of 1,000 miles starts with one step. If you're jumping a mile down, if you're jumping 10 steps and your patient is on their first step, they can't catch up. This is one step at a time. And that is true of the care itself, but it also is true of the conversations around that. Mm-hmm.