---
name: patient-education-handout
description: "Write a plain-language patient education handout on a condition, test or procedure, at a 6th to 8th grade reading level. Use when a clinician wants a handout, leaflet or after-visit information for patients."
---

# Patient Education Handout

## Structure

1. Title as the patient would ask it ("What is gestational diabetes?").
2. What it is (2 to 3 sentences).
3. Why it matters for you.
4. What will happen next or what you can do (numbered steps).
5. When to call your care team, and when to go to the emergency department (clear warning signs).
6. Questions to ask at your next visit.
7. Source line (guideline or organization, with year).

## Rules

- Short sentences, everyday words, "you" for the reader.
- Explain any medical term the first time it appears, or replace it.
- Do not recommend specific medications or doses unless the clinician supplies them.
- Supportive, calm tone; never frightening, never dismissive.
- Fits on one or two printed pages.
- Offer a teach-back question at the end ("Can you tell me in your own words...").

## 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.