All Tibetan proper names are spelled phonetically in this book, with the exception of the bibliography and bibliographical references in the notes, where they are given in transliteration according to the Wylie system. Tibetan book titles that recur repeatedly are translated into English, with Tibetan bibliographical references in the notes; a few works that are only mentioned once or twice in the discussion are not translated and are given in Tibetan transliteration. The large majority of Tibetan technical terms are provided in transliteration and usually in parentheses or in the notes, but several terms that appear frequently in the discussion or already have widely established usage in Western-language contexts are spelled phonetically. The transliteration for all phonetically spelled Tibetan terms and names may be found in the index.
The gender of pronouns referring to Tibetan doctors are masculine in this book, since from everything the texts indicate, the practitioners of Sowa Rikpa were virtually, if not entirely male until well beyond the period under discussion, and the lines of medical inheritance explicitly patrilineal.