PATIENTS

Pediatric polysomnography patient
Children's Hospital (Saint Louis), 2006

A patient is any person who receives medical attention, care, or treatment.^[1] The person is most often ill or injured and is being treated by, or in need of treatment by, a physician or other medical professional. Health consumer or health care consumer or client are other names for patient, usually used by some governmental agencies, insurance companies, and/or patient groups.

[edit] Origin of word

The word patient is derived from the Latin word patiens, the present participle of the deponent verb pati, meaning "one who endures" or "one who suffers".

Patient is also the adjective form of patience. Both senses of the word share a common origin.

In itself the definition of patient doesn't imply suffering or passivity but the role it describes is often associated with the definitions of the adjective form: enduring trying circumstances with even temper. Some have argued recently that the term should be dropped, because it underlines the inferior status of recipients of health care. ^[2] For them, "the active patient is a contradiction in terms, and it is the assumption underlying the passivity that is the most dangerous". Unfortunately none of the alternative terms seem to offer a better definition.

• Client, whose Latin root cliens means "one who is obliged to make supplications to a powerful figure for material assistance", carries a sense of subservience.
• Consumer suggest both a financial relationship and a particular social/political stance, implying that health care services operate exactly like all other commercial markets. Many reject that term on the grounds that consumerism is an individualistic concept that fails to capture the particularity of health care systems.

[edit] See also

• Medicine
• Patient empowerment
• Patients' Bill of Rights (US)
• Casualty (person)
• e-Patient
• Patient-Centered Care

[edit] References

1. ^ answers.com
2. ^ Neuberger, J. (1999). "Let's do away with "patients"". British Medical Journal 318: 1756-8.

[edit] External links

• I am a good patient, believe it or not, a peer-reviewed article published in the British Medical Journal's (BMJ) first issue dedicated to patients in its 160 year history
• How (not) to be a good patient, review article with views on the meaning of the words 'good doctor' vs. 'good patient'

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