Patient or Client?

I gotta agree with you 100%, but if you were a pharmacist, I could see client working for that one.

I agree with you. When I go to see my psychiatrist, I am his patient.

At the agency where I work, we say “participants”. I think both client and patient have power implications. At the doctor’s office, though I am comfortable with be referred to as a patient.

If they are capable of participating in their treatment, and if their participation is essential to the success of treatment, they are clients. If they are helpless (through disability or anesthesia) they are patients. As a psychiatrist you would see both.

I’m a nurse and I prefer the term patients. Client seems to much like a business transaction to me.

What if you’re treating someone who is impatient?

I don’t see much reason to be concerned about the two terms. Some people prefer to be known as clients and other are comfortable with patient. Why would it matter?

Well, if they pay you any money then they are clients.

Here in Spain there is free health care, if I go to a general practitioner or a psychiatrist im their patient, if I go to the dentist where they want $100 to see me, I’m a client.

However, I am totally against the idea of money having any kind of role in health care. personally I would not trust any dentist, psychiatrist or general doctor that calls me their client.

I want to be treated like a client, and have my paying for a service acknowledged. but i want to be cared for like a patient. basically, when it comes to health care, if im down, im vulnerable, i want to have my cake and eat it.

This is yet another instance of a very vocal minority trying to redefine the roles of people by changing first what things are called to change the way things are thought of.
My old organization keeps changing how out people are referred to and several other commonly held terms. We were no longer allowed to refer to them as patients and had to say “individuals”. We went from MR to mentally disabled to mentally challenged, and the last I heard before I left we were not allowed to even acknowledge that they had any impairments at all. Kind of like the Emperors New Clothes sort of thing.

I hate it.

@Trillian Labels don’t help people get better.

I would not keep you as a doctor. I would rather you spend time on my case than your title.

Sorry to be harsh, but I think it is warranted.

Personally, I would leave what they are called up to the person seeking treatment.

I’ve never heard of therapy patients being called clients instead of patients, and I get around in the psych community. That’s truly weird. However, my take on it wasn’t about commercialism and money, but rather that perhaps it’s a (strange & ineffective) way to help society see therapy as the more realistic person-centered approach instead of the archaic psychoanalytic that so many people still perceive it to be.

I have absolutely no problem with being called a patient. Being a patient instead of a client doesn’t mean I loose power and control, in fact I feel that I gain some. It means that it correctly defines our relationship, and also means we don’t have to spend tons of time debating the definitions of each term.

@YARNLADY ummm…. What? Mentally challenged people are not ever going to get better. We can only help them achieve all they can to live fulfilled lives.
Calling someone a client as opposed to patient changes nothing either. And the OP stated that it was people in the work space who are trying to “correct” the terminology, not the people seeking treatment.

Client to me sounds much too business like, too corporate. The relationship between a doctor and his/her patient to me is no corporate or business dealing.

@Trillian help them achieve all they can to live fulfilled lives. is helping them get better. When people understand the power of words they are able to function more fully.

I agree. I’ve always felt the same way. Well put!

Here is an article stating quite clearly why a doctor should always use the term patient.

I think of client as receiving service, and patient receiving treatment.

What @Winters said. Client sounds like you’re working with computers; very tech.
. You are a doctor and you have patients. Are these people saying it jealous? Or are they , too, doctors? If they aren’t doctors they’re jealous of you and they want to kick you down a notch.

@Aster It’s a push by some people in the medical community. It actually started several years ago. When I was in nursing school, about midway, they started trying to change it to clients in some of the literature we had. I didn’t like it then and I still don’t like it now. I honestly think it started with some insurance companies, but I’m not 100% sure of that.

I’ll bet it’s those damn JCAHO losers!

I totally agree with you. I hate the word client, and have never used it for my patients in clinical practice. I discourage my students now from using it, too. It is far too politically correct.

I have read most of the responses, and much of an article. I have never thought about this much, but as I think about it, I rather prefer client in that I am paying a doctor to help me. It reminds me that I am responsible for my own health, and if a doctor does not take care of my needs or abuses me in anyway (I’ve had plenty of those, believe me), I can and will take my business elsewhere. Sometimes the best way you can vote is with your feet.