I work for Maimonides Breast Cancer Center. Being part of a community where every day women and even men get imaging done to detect if they have cancer forming in their breast area.
The “language” that I use within this community is a medical one. For example, I learned how to read reports on what a Bi-Rad means (Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System) to know how each patient’s recent imaging came out. There are several categories of bi-rads.
1) B-0 -patient needs additional images and/or needs to bring in priors
2) B-1 -negative follow up in a year
3) B-2-negative follow up in a year
4) B-3 -Follow up in 3-6 months (usually due to a concern but its nothing serious)
5) B-4, B-4a, B-4b- suspicious and needs to do a Biopsy
6) B-5 -highly suspicious of malignancy and needs to be biopsy
7) B-6 -Known biopsy- proven cancer
As well as submitting “interps” which is a phrase we use to do an interpretation of outside images. I would collect the patients records. Any patient who is being recommended for a biopsy, I would make sure I have all their records before processing to a radiologist. A radiologist is a doctor who reads images. Once the radiologist goes over all the records they will fill out a “WETREAD” form (a verbal paper) indicating if they are agreeing with the outside records or given a different recommendation.
This is the jargon that I learn and use on a daily basis with the community I work with. Bi-Rads and Interps have became a staple of my vocabulary for over several years of working in radiology. At first it didn’t mean anything, just words on a paper and terms I didn’t understand. After a while working and learning from the medical field community it’s very important information to know so that when you are taking care of a patient and either booking appointments or collecting records you know what you’re looking for, how best to help them and how to do my job properly.
I writing about this community and its jargon would make a wonderful Portrait. Klass’ essay is a good model for this in the sense that it takes us from her earliest introduction to the jargon to why it’s used for medical reasons and as a way of keeping the patient “out” of the loop, etc., to how she finally started feeling once she began to understand it all. You might also write about a specific incident — a story about something that happened during your learning process. That always makes it more interesting for us as an audience to read.
Since this is my daily life routine knowing the information of Bi-rads. I have so many stories with patients, teaching them what the stages of their reports mean. So I know this will be a great educational story.