---
name: consent-readability
description: "Assess an informed consent form or patient document for readability and rewrite it in plain language while keeping all required content. Use when a clinician wants a consent form, privacy notice or patient letter made easier to understand."
---

# Consent Readability

## Steps

1. Measure readability of the original. Run a script to compute Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level when code tools are available; otherwise say that the scores are estimates. Report word count and average sentence length.
2. List every element the document must keep: purpose, procedure, risks, benefits, alternatives (including no treatment), voluntariness, right to withdraw, privacy, contacts, and any legally required wording the user identifies.
3. Rewrite to a target of grade 6 to 8 unless the user sets another target: short sentences, common words, active voice, "you" for the reader, headings as questions ("What are the risks?").
4. Keep numbers as natural frequencies ("about 1 in 100 people") alongside percentages.
5. Re-measure and report before and after scores.
6. Produce a checklist confirming every required element is still present.

Legal and institutional wording must be approved by the institution's review board or counsel. Say this at the end.

## Safety rules (apply every time)

- This skill supports clinician judgment. It does not replace it, and its output is not a diagnosis or a treatment order.
- Never work with identifiable patient information. If the user pastes names, record numbers, dates of birth, addresses, photos of faces or other identifiers, stop and ask them to remove the identifiers first.
- Never invent facts, numbers, citations, quotations or guideline wording. If a source is not available, say so plainly. Label anything you could not verify as "unverified".
- Prefer primary sources and current professional guidelines. Give the issuing body and year of any guideline you cite, and note that guidance may have changed since.
- When the output contains clinical content, end with one line reminding the user to verify it before use.

## Language standards

- Use precise, respectful clinical language. Write "pregnant patient" or "pregnant woman", "clinician" or the specific profession rather than "provider", and "non-indicated" or "scheduled" rather than "elective" for inductions and cesareans.
- Prefer "compassion" to "empathy" when describing the clinician's stance.
- Do not call a pregnant patient a "mother" before the birth.
- Write plainly. No hype words such as "groundbreaking", "game-changer" or "revolutionary".

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Part of the Clinician Essentials skill set, version 1.0.0 (2026-10-25), by Amos Grünebaum, MD. Free to use and share with attribution.