Summary: 

What we write in clinical documentation, patient messages, and study descriptions shapes how a patient is perceived by others and how they perceive themselves. Written language choices carry ethical weight because they can affirm or negate patient dignity, autonomy, and sense of belonging within the healthcare system.  Our documentation guides how other healthcare professionals understand, evaluate, and interact with a patient. When bias, judgment, or imprecision is unintentionally introduced, it can ethically compromise care by reinforcing stereotypes, influencing clinical decision-making, and contributing to inequitable outcomes. Thoughtful, respectful, and precise communication is both a professional and ethical obligation—one that helps ensure every patient is recognized as a whole person and supports a more just, trustworthy, and compassionate healthcare environment.

Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to describe a working definition of equity in documentation and explain its ethical significance in clinical care.
2. Participants will understand how language choices intersect with ethics, identity, and power, and why respectful terminology matters to patients’ dignity and self-understanding.
3. Participants will recognize how clinical documentation ethically influences how other clinicians perceive, interpret, and act on information about patients