Amy Tenderich weighs in on the name debate: patient vs. consumer. Almost anything is better than cyberchondriac or medical googler, but e-patient is still my favorite.
Reader Interactions
Comments
Trackbacks
-
@kevinkruse Check out the links in this short post re e-patient vs consumer vs medical googler vs cyberchondriac http://is.gd/i96w
-
[…] “Patients” vs. “Health Care Consumers”? Both, If You Ask AmyT […]
-
[…] is an unusual contribution in our series Why I Joined. As we’ve observed (August 2008, February 2009, February 2011) that language can be important in social movements, because as words change their […]
I loathe the word “consumer” — as if we use up healthcare. “Patient” isn’t much better, though it goes nicely with “waiting room”. I personally lobbied for “Fergusons”, but Tom put his foot down on that one.
How about “Health Activist”? That was a suggestion from Marie Connelly over on DiabetesMine.com. I also like Jane Sarasohn-Kahn’s suggestion of “citizen.”
Seems like each term
Seems like each term has pro’s and con’s. The reality is that we ARE acting like health consumers, but the term sure is cold and doesn’t embrace the elements of being a good, or savvy consumer. e-patient much better at that I think. Health Activist makes me think of people marching on Washington–which although probably not a bad idea–not the right term for everyday actions.
Will be nice when “patient” itself embodies all that we want e-patient to mean.