In “The Trouble With Medicines Metaphors”, he starts off by talking a lot about military metaphors when talking about illness. He told a lady that they will fight the illness together and she has a team to help her out. It reminds him of his aunt and how she “fought” her lymphoma. Are military references in this case doing more harm than good? Thinking of it as a fight can make people thing more negatively about it. The words that are used to talk about an illness are very important and can change someones entire outlook on what they are going through.

I believe that this is a major part of medicine. The mindset of the patient is one of the most important aspects of treating them. Language can effect someones overall view on everything. If the doctors are uncertain and nervous, it will make the patient nervous. Telling them that they will have no issues and that the issue isn’t as bad as they think is the way to go about it. Describing it as a “fight” can come across as negative. People think that they are in war fighting against this illness. It would be better to refer to it as a cake walk rather than a fight to keep people assurance up.

Metaphorically Speaking: “We utter about 6 metaphors a minute” this quote really stuck out to me because you don’t really think about how much you speak metaphorically until someone points it out to you.

See Through Words: “Metaphor designers create pseudo-mistakes deliberately” saying something that originally makes no sense can lead you to the correct answer eventually.

Medicines Metaphors: “By describing a treatment as a battle and a patient as a combatant, we set an inherently adversarial tone, and dichotomize outcomes into victory and defeat.” People need to look at things in a positive way, not think of things as a battle that they could become hurt or lose the battle.