ABSTRACT
Authentic democracy promises to be shared, facilitative sign and symbol that signifies a new horizon for healthcare, while issues of boundary crossing for practitioners are at the core of its fulfilment. As a democratic gesture, in order to bridge from doctor to patient and redistribute power and sensibility, could common “translational” terms be used? How can the curriculum exert influence as a political text in a simple gesture, such as democratizing medical talk by drawing on lay language or developing a shared language between doctor and patient? The use of specialist language affords legitimate authority, but such authority may be wielded in ways that maintain exclusion rather than invite some inclusion, and that maintain hierarchy rather than inviting collaboration through democratic habits. Sensitive doctors adapt to their patients’ languages and semiotic cultures, but even the simplest of medical distinctions – for example between workings and effects of a bacterium and a virus – can readily confuse and exclude patients.
