This book contains a diverse collection of studies on medical discourse focused on various kinds of data ranging from different professional-related genres to lay ones. Using multidisciplinary approaches (e.g. sociology, corpus linguistics, cognitive linguistics), the collection addresses fundamental issues related to medical discourse, such as sociocultural and textual variation in different medical academic genres (chapter 2), pedagogical materials for medical school (chapters 3 and 4), ethics in informed consent (chapter 5), the importance of written language in doctor-patient communication (chapter 6), metaphors in cancer (chapters 7 and 8), and in mindfulness discourse (chapter 9).

The first chapter, written by the editors, highlights the importance of investigating medical discourse in order to understand and potentially enhance communication in medical settings. The editors present an overview of how linguistics has contributed to the study of medical discourse followed by an introduction to the chapters that comprise the volume. Maurizio Gotti, in chapter 2, presents research projects that investigate possible identity and textual variations displayed by native and nonnative English speakers in their academic writings. In a general way, chapters 3 and 4 present insights to improve medical training. Chapter 3, by Vicent Salvador, proposes that writing and reading clinical case reports may develop professionals’ ability to understand patients’ narratives. Chapter 4, by Begonã Bellés-Fortuño, contrasts scientific research articles (RAs) with popular science articles (PSAs). After showing that PSAs are more understandable, the authors claim that they should be included in the syllabus of the first years of medical schools.

Chapters 5 and 6 examine genres whose target audience is patients. By matching several applied linguistics disciplines to analyse the issue of ethics in informed consents used to get patients’ participation in medical research in Denmark, Morten Pilegaard, in chapter 5, concludes that these documents lack ethicalness and they neglect the fact that the patients might not have specific knowledge to understand technical language. Drawing from an analysis of the Calgary-Cambridge Guide, chapter 6, by Vicent Montalt & Isabel Farcia-Izquierdo, explores how written communication can be included in clinical communication to improve patients’ understanding.

The last three chapters investigate metaphors in medical discourse. In chapter 7 Ignasi Navarro e Ferrando claims that the use of cancer metaphors varies across genres. In chapter 8, Marti Domínguez & Lucía Sapiña show that even though war metaphors are stigmatizing, they are still frequently used to refer to the illness and the ill. The last chapter, by Antonio-José Silvestre López, focuses on identifying effective mindfulness teaching procedures through the analysis of metaphors produced by a group of participants in a mindfulness course at a Spanish university.

The studies presented in this volume provide remarkable arguments to encourage further integration of humanistic and technical knowledge. Furthermore, the volume substantiates the importance of understanding how language works to promote successful medical communication.