When is a patient not a patient?

When he is a substance misuser or a user, or a client, or an injector, or a consumer ... The list goes on.

One of the more tedious aspects of working in substance misuse is the political-correctness gone mad approach within some of the services. The inability to call someone a patient is a typical example.I have always felt that one of the key qualities that a GP can bring to any situation is a dose of cold hard pragmatism.

I have decided to follow this argument: I am a doctor, therefore the people I treat are patients. If social workers, keyworkers or any other worker types choose to do differently they can fill their boots. Calling them patients doesn't make them any less of a person or less of an individual. Applying the label patient does not, in my book at least, reduce that person's right to decide and agree on treatment options. One of my fellow GPs pointed out this definition from wikipedia.

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".

That suits me fine. I hope it suits my patients too.