I must admit to feeling very strongly about information that is written for patients – both about the quality and the appropriateness of the information itself, and about how it is communicated. Thankfully, this topic is now enjoying some long overdue attention from the Regulatory Authorities and the Pharmaceutical Industry. This has led to a plethora of research articles on communication strategies in healthcare, and one would imagine that the vocabulary used would be fairly crucial, and therefore the subject of intense discussion and research. However, as our contributor to this issue, Catherine Richards Golini, points out – very little is known about the influence of vocabulary in this area.