Medical Terms

Use person/people with Aids or person who is HIV positive, not loaded or emotive terms such as ‘Aids victim’ or ‘person suffering from Aids’.

Use conjoined twins, not Siamese twins.

Use cosmetic surgery to describe surgery that is performed for aesthetic, rather than medical, reasons. Use plastic surgery to describe surgery that is performed to address medical deformity/illness.

The medical term is dwarfism and the preferred terms for a person with dwarfism is little person, person of short stature or dwarf. Never use midget.

Female genital mutilation is the preferred term; do not use ‘female circumcision’.

Do not use this outdated term; use bipolar disorder.

The preferred term is person with mental health issues or person with a mental illness. As with other types of disability, do not use the term ‘the mentally ill’. Avoid clearly offensive expressions such as ‘loony’, ‘maniac’, ‘nutter’, ‘psycho’ and ‘schizo’, along with stigmatising terms such as ‘victim of’, ‘suffering from’ and ‘afflicted’. Also avoid the euphemism ‘mentally challenged’, which is often used with a derogatory intent.

Avoid the use of ‘schizophrenic’ as an adjective; also note that schizophrenia is not synonymous with split personality or by bipolar disorder. Never use to mean contradictory or ‘in two minds’: this is incorrect and offensive to people diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Do not use ‘committed suicide’; it is a hangover from when killing oneself was a crime. The preferred alternative is killed her/himself or took his/her own life.