Replacing the stigma of 'epileptic' with a tasteless acronym and coming full circle

摘要

I am not a member of the medical community, but an epileptic man having completed a book manuscript discussing the state of epileptology from the perspective of a patient. While researching topics, I have read numerous articles from Seizure. In the process of doing so, I have become disillusioned by the stigmatization that I have felt in the endeavor. I refer to the habit of many of your contributors to condense myself and fellow sufferers into a label reminiscent of what one might find on the leader-board of the London Stock Exchange. While I might be unique in this regard, I find that referring to others as an acronym or an abbreviation is generally discourteous. Thus, when 1 see the phrase 'person with epilepsy' altered to 'PWE' too frequently, my afflicted temporal lobes lose track of whether or not I am being thought of as a human or as a laboratory chemical. While working in a lab, I often made use of cetyltrimethylammo-nium bromide. Like all others, I abbreviated it to СТАВ. Such a convention is unnecessary for writing about human beings of any kind.