reasons for not treating a patient as a client

REPLY1

When referring to the recipients of nursing care, I agree with this change, because I consider as a patient the person who suffers pain or discomfort and receives the services of a health professional, and undergoes an examination, treatment or to an intervention. As a nurse I refuse to use the term Client, because it may refer to Mercantilism, I also understand that if we are patients we trust the competence and know-how of the health professional, among the reasons for not treating a patient as a client I consider the following: the patient does not want to be there in the hospital, consultation, health center, emergency room, the patient is usually not prepared at any time, and does not usually have the precise knowledge to make decisions autonomously, and finally the patient is not alone . Many times the patient decides in a shared way with family, friends, caregivers, professionals who care for him, etc.

REPLY2

After reviewing the ANA code of ethics found in Butts (2015) textbook I can see that they use the term patient in lieu of client now.  I honestly see the two as synonymous because I have been using the term patient since before I went to nursing school and worked as an xray technician but when I went to nursing school they told us to call them clients instead of patients.  Now it seems like we’ve made a full circle and come back to calling them patients again.  I simply do not see the difference and don’t disagree with calling them patients or clients.  I do suppose calling them clients makes me feel like we work for them instead of caring for them but, again, the two words have become synonymous to me and I don’t care one way or another what we call the patients/clients.