Should healthcare professionals use the term ‘patient’? A patient is a social construct, in a biomedical model, in which each actor has their role to play. This model has been criticised as belonging to an era of medical hegemony and (mis)represents an individual seeking healthcare as one who is simply a passive participant and recipient of care. The ‘Language Matters’ campaign, for people living with diabetes, has sought to address the role of language in interactions between healthcare providers. A key point raised in the campaign is whether someone who feels well, but has ongoing healthcare input, should be referred to as a patient? In this article, we address the concept of a patient and how its use can belie a particular mindset (or ‘discourse’) in which power is established in a relationship and can lead to individuals being defined by their condition. However, for some linguistic communities (such as nurses and doctors), a patient may be considered less as one over whom they have dominion, but rather someone for whom they have specific responsibilities and duty of care. Drawing upon the philosophical theories of language—that the meaning and inference of a word is dependent on its use—we argue that the context in which use of the term patient occurs is crucial. Without more fundamental cultural disruption of the biomedical model, word substitution, in itself, will not change perception.

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探索“患者”的社会和哲学基础——这对患有长期疾病的人意味着什么

医疗保健专业人员应该使用“患者”一词吗？在生物医学模型中，患者是一个社会结构，每个参与者都有自己的角色。这种模式被批评为属于医疗霸权时代，并且（错误地）将寻求医疗保健的个人简单地描述为被动参与者和护理接受者。针对糖尿病患者的“语言问题”运动旨在解决语言在医疗保健提供者之间互动中的作用。活动中提出的一个关键点是，感觉良好但持续接受医疗保健投入的人是否应该被称为患者？在本文中，我们讨论患者的概念，以及它的使用如何掩盖一种特定的心态（或“话语”），在这种心态中，权力是在关系中建立的，并可能导致个人根据自己的状况来定义。然而，对于某些语言群体（例如护士和医生）来说，患者可能不被认为是他们拥有管辖权的人，而是被认为是他们负有特定责任和护理义务的人。借鉴语言的哲学理论——一个词的含义和推论取决于它的使用——我们认为使用“患者”一词的上下文至关重要。如果不对生物医学模式进行更根本的文化破坏，词语替换本身不会改变看法。