I have a pet peeve. It is the word “compliance.”
This word is thrown around quite a bit in CF circles, especially among medical professionals. It is used frequently in research papers, where there is an understanding of what it means. Physicians and other researchers are very concerned that people with CF don’t always do everything that they are told to do to keep their disease and all of its various manifestations at bay. If someone fails to do all required treatments or take all medications or exercise daily, they are coined “non-compliant.” Did I say that I hate that word?
Just do me a favor and check out your friendly thesaurus to find other words that mean the same thing. Never mind, I’ll help you out. Here are a few: docile, easy, manageable, meek, submissive, yielding. In other words, spineless, with no worthwhile opinion on the matter. Now in the olden days, when Doctors were GOD (which is why I capitalized doctor), it was just assumed that one followed one’s doctor’s orders, no questions asked. But times have changed, and if you don’t believe me, turn on your TV and count how many different pharmaceuticals tell you, the patient, to “ask your doctor if this could be right for you.” Like it or not, patients are a very important part of the equation now. This is a good thing (not the television commercial part…that is a very crazy and ridiculous thing).
I’m not harping on CF doctors. I actually think most realize that the patient has very important information, like how much it is really possible for them to do in a given 24 hour period. So why can’t we drop the word?
I have an alternative. How about instead of the word compliance, we use “consistent.” How consistent someone is with their thrice daily aerosols, or 250 pills to swallow, or blood glucose monitoring, or airway clearance technique of choice, or exercise, or any of the myriad other things we must do daily, sounds SO much better than “compliant.” There is no judgement in the word consistent. It implies that we are all trying hard, but sometimes life gets in the way. Check out some of the synonyms of my substitute word: dependable, persistent, rational, steady, true, regular. I like dependable and steady so much more than meek and submissive, don’t you?
What say you, CF peeps?
