Apparently, there’s a shift to calling patients “clients” in community nursing publications.
Kim at Emergiblog takes exception to that, saying that although medical care is rapidly becoming a commodity, “it is the only service in which people expose themselves emotionally, physically and spiritually, or share the most intimate details of their lives.”
Patients are looking for something more, like “to be cared about while they are being cared for.”
Which is why they should never be called clients.
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{ 8 comments }
Thanks for writing this.
I found the use of the term “consumer” (which I have heard before) equally bothersome!
The term client, I believe, has emerged out of critical social theory, and the though that the term patient has certain disempowering meaning associated with it. A patient is sick, has complaints, must comply, and various other possible extrapolations can be made. I see the logic and why some nurses may wish to help empower patients. Personally I like the term patients, because it conveys the responsibility that I as a healthcare provider owe them. It conveys that they have placed themselves in the care of myself and the organization I work within. I think there are both positive and negative aspects to the debate of what to call patients both should be taken with a grain of salt.
I think social workers use the term client as well. Not sure if this may have originated with them.
I agree with Manny. Consumer is the word often used. Consumer implies that they are educated about the product they’re purchasing, like a TV at Best Buy. This certainly is not the case with patient care. For more discussion on this and other topics, please visit, http://www.takingcontrolofyourhealthcare.com
“Consumer” is inappropriate for obvious reasons.
“Client” is popular with social workers who see “patient” as authoritarian while they think they are bending over backwards to respect autonomy and use “client” to communicate that. It shows the abysmal ignorance of the entire profession and the utter vacuity of a social science education. The root of the term “client” is “clinare” which means to “to lean upon” . It refers to a dependent of a powerful person, ones liege upon whom one must look to for protection and in turn serve and obey.
“Patient” is rooted in “pathos”, suffering. It communicates that the central defining feature of the relationship is not depedency or authority or business (as in consumer) but rather that one member of the pair is suffering and that suffering is what brings them together—and all the ethical obligations of the physician flow from that fact. Sometimes the doctor-patient relationship is indeed authoritarian, sometimes not. Sometimes the patient is dependent. Sometimes he is an autonomous and savey purchaser of services. But the suffering confers the Hippocratic obligations on the physician to attend to that suffering regardless.
Excellent insight Anon 8:10. Thanks for posting it.
Oh vomit! To riff on Goebbels, when doctors talk about their “ethical” duties, I want to reach for a barf bag. Of course medical services are nothing but a commodity–otherwise doctors wouldn’t get paid.
Why is medicine different from any other occupation that gives their practitioners the opportunity to hurt/screw their clients? An unethical lawyer or investment consultant or barber can inflict as much disutility as a doctor (remember under current cost benefit analysis, a human life is worth about $1.2 million).
It’s time doctors get out of their literally ancient (at best medieval) view that what they do is special. As treatments advance, medicine will become more and merely technical–indeed, the rise of nurse practitioners, etc. attests to this. And, that’s a good thing.
Let’s forget about Hippocrates, Maimonides–and move into the 21st century.
Patients are looking for something more, like “to be cared about while they are being cared for.”
What a load of self-glorifying, self-important, pompous hooey.
Patients (at least one) simply want correct diagnosis and evidence based treatments competently administered.
As such, we’re just consumers buying a commodity, like a hair cut.
Doctors, get over yourselve!
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