30 October 2010

Patient, Consumer, Ill Person or What Term?

I will admit I enjoy reading Dr. Rob. His way of explaining everyday happenings is straight forward and thoughtful. He has his detractors, but they happen to anyone.

In his blog on October 5, 2010, he chose to address the issue of “What is a patient?”. He started out by asking a series of questions to help define a patient. Though I am not a patient of his, I think I could enjoy being one of his patients. His questions are very probing and leave no doubt about what he is trying to resolve.

A couple of questions Dr. Rob asked “Are they consumers? Are they paying customers?” and the last one “are they the ones in charge?” He states that it depends on the situation and on perspective. Dr. Rob was right in people being offended, both physicians and patients, but they were not reading it with the intent written. He carefully laid out his thoughts and then went on to explain where he was coming from.

Then in the following post he has to defend what he had written. If you have any doubts about his definitions go back and reread both posts. Dr. Rob writes with a lot of insight and respect for the term patients and all the other terms he uses with care. I believe there is room for all of his terms.

Dr. Rob's discussion make me feel a little awkward about what I thought about when I wrote this. I am rethinking how I will rewrite this in the future.

No comments:

Post a Comment