Why is the term client used instead of patient?

Nurses General Nursing

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This may be a silly question, but I am in my first semester of nursing school. All my professors refer to patients as clients. Is there a reason why the term client is used instead of patient? Does the word patient imply something negative that I'm not aware of? It just seems a little strange to me.

Thanks!

Specializes in Community Health Nurse.
Originally posted by stevielynn

.................................I can tell you that for me, the idea of a nurse in white conjures up the idea of sex kitten or maid or someone subservient.

steph

steph........I sometimes wear a white uniform when I work, and I assure everyone reading this post that the LAST THING I look like in a white uniform is a "sex kitten or maid or someone subservient." THAT just aint possible. :rotfl:

Here's a pic of me in a white uniform about 15 years ago: :)

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Specializes in Community Health Nurse.

And here is a pic of me at graduation. I have lots of pics of me in white uniforms...both pants and dresses, some with my nursing cap and some without.........I never looked like anything but a clean cut professional looking registered nurse. :nurse:

Nurses and nursing students....please keep in mind that many of us became nurses during the era when white uniforms and possibly caps were being worn. During those times, we did not view ourselves in white the way you new nurses do today who did not have to don the white uniforms and caps.

It would be greatly appreciated if you all would keep that fact in mind, and be sensitive to those of us who grew up viewing the nurses in white as "Wow, I want to be a nurse one day, and wear my white uniform and nursing cap, too" kind of enthusiasm. Please do not trash the nurses of "yesterday" by saying white uniforms make nurses look like "sex kittens, handmaids, and someone subservient". Thank you! :nurse:

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Cheerfuldoer . . . . my apologies.

You are right of course and everyone should have the right to wear what they wish.

But honey, you look pretty darn good . . . woo hoo

:D

steph :kiss

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Specializes in Community Health Nurse.

Thank you for understanding steph, and thanks for the compliment, too. :kiss

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Hello,

Cheerfuldoer, I feel like you do about the uniform. At almost 40 I have not viewed those wearing whites as slutty, sex kittens, subservient hand maidens or such. They can look clean, crisp and professional looking and it seems very unlikely that would not be to the liking of our "clients" and professional peers.

When I wrote about my thoughts about client/patient I was trying to point out the fact that it can, with some people, make them feel a bit more empowered to stand up for their rights as a consumer of our services. Now, will it make ALL the difference? No, of course not. But over 8 years of working with "clients" in their homes I found that, once I got over my initial resistance to using the term, I understood the significance. I realize that there are many great nurses and they are providing excellent, professional nursing care to their patients/clients. Also, I realize that there are (perhaps) more clients who are realizing that they don't have to take such a passive role in their in-hospital care. It seems, however, that this would be a minor thing that we could do to "take the high road" but I see that some others see it as just another "politically correct" rule being churned out by the powers-that-be and they resent that.

Maybe I am just sad that I see the career of nursing as being something that fewer and fewer good people will want to pursue, and for good reasons. There are so many problems with understaffing, bad attitudes from docs and others, etcetera. I guess I am just in the camp of looking for ways we can use to portray us as a more (united?) professional force "to be reckoned with". It makes me sad that so many leave the role they loved because they hated the awful "job". I don't have all the answers (now THAT'S the understatement of the century :eek: ) and I guess I am old-fashioned but I just hope that we can find ways to help our profession be one that we can find more satisfying and true to our hopes.

There is such bitterness from so many nurses about things like nursing diagnoses, whites, terms like client vs patient, and more. I realize that it can be difficult to see how those details might be valid when you are in the trenches, day after day, understaffed and frustrated. I guess I just had my vision tweaked by several dear friends who are those "crazies' who envision something better.

A while back, I called a friend who had been a bedside nurse for 15 years before going into education and contributing to nursing research for several years now. I asked her about these "semantics" and she convinced me they were important to our role as professional nurses and to the continued autonomy we are supposed to enjoy. Another nurse I am lucky to call a friend, told me not to be discouraged but to keep on visualizing that it will get better. She has her doctorate in nursing, is a respected authority on the care of terminal patients and is out on the pioneering edge of defining what nursing can be. An advocate of change she, among other things, is building a wellness center that will utilize complementary and traditional medicine for her clients. I found her when I was desperately seeking protocols on providing massage to my friend with leukemia. One of the studies she had published covered just that subject. My point (is there one?:rolleyes: ) is that perhaps, just maybe, these semantics might help us, and incidently the public/docs/hospital administrators/etc, to see nursing as the profession that it can be and to ascribe (?) more value to those who choose that path. I have to believe that there is hope.

Thanks all :kiss

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It was explained to me that it is because we are providing " customer service" . I was always of the opinion that I was providing " care" not "service" If I wanted to work in the service industry, I would work in a hotel. Especially since where I work, most of our " clients" don't pay anyway. Nothing burns me up more when a " client" complains about " poor " service". :( :(

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I think we would all agree that it's more the attitude and not the word that matters. I think those of us "in the trenches" just don't care too much if someone is a patient or client as long as they receive good nursing care. And I would bet the clients don't either... If you are disrespectful and use the word "client", you aren't being a good nurse. Same thing if you are disrespectful and use the term "patient". I'll happily work with any good nurse.

My clients are not even old enough to speak, so I don't know if they care or not:) If I care for my babies well, my parents (the baby's parents) could probably care less if I am calling them clients or patients, or wearing white or prints (and I get a lot of compliments on the prints, makes the place more homey). I work with some of these parents for months, and I have never had a problem working WITH them. I think it's particularly important in the NICU because the babies are not mine, they are the parents' and I am not going home with them, so it's important that they are involved with all aspects of care.

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
Originally posted by fergus51

I think we would all agree that it's more the attitude and not the word that matters. I think those of us "in the trenches" just don't care too much if someone is a patient or client as long as they receive good nursing care. And I would bet the clients don't either... If you are disrespectful and use the word "client", you aren't being a good nurse. Same thing if you are disrespectful and use the term "patient". I'll happily work with any good nurse.

My clients are not even old enough to speak, so I don't know if they care or not:) If I care for my babies well, my parents (the baby's parents) could probably care less if I am calling them clients or patients, or wearing white or prints (and I get a lot of compliments on the prints, makes the place more homey). I work with some of these parents for months, and I have never had a problem working WITH them. I think it's particularly important in the NICU because the babies are not mine, they are the parents' and I am not going home with them, so it's important that they are involved with all aspects of care.

good, solid common-sense thinking from outside the Ivory Towers. I like this post best.

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When i hear the word "client", i think of the Hair Club for Men commercials.

LOL!!!! I am so glad I am not the only one who thinks this way!

I don't like the term client. I've resisted it so much that when I was in Nursing school, when my texts used the word "client," I automatically inserted patient in my head. Did it so often, I think the letters actually spell patient! :D

It was my very first nursing clinical instructor who turned me off to the phrase. She told us that it was admin's way to make nurses behave in a more "business-like" fashion.

In essence, to me it's an attempt to de-personalize the nurse/patient relationship.

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I'm inclinined to use the politically incorrect 'patients' just because I've done that so long--

Don't like customer or client connotations.

A local CSB uses "consumers", I could live with that!

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Specializes in Emergency/Critical Care Transport.

Ooooooh! That "client" or "customer" thing drives me crazy. A patient is someone in need of medical assistance for which I provide care. It is a special relationship. A client is someone who seeks service for fee. And it implies that they have the ability to shop around. Let me tell you something. If you're wheeled into my ED you get the nurse who is assigned to you. You don't get a menu from which to pick this ain't the Bunny Ranch. And a customer is someone looking for bargains at WalMart. After coming from a Paramedic background where anyone calling for you assistance was a "patient" and of course anyone who sees an MD is a patient, why on earth do we in nursing have to have "clients"? Almost gets me as much as some of the Nursing DX. Altered Gas Transport, No it's dyspnea! Whether you practice as a medic, nurse NP PA or Doctor it's all medicine! It would help if we were all on the same page. (RANT OVER, Medic946RN out.)

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When I started LVN school I asked my instructor why this term was used. He (BTW was an a-hole) explained that for years Doctors were like Gods and basically just swooped in and told Pts that this is this and that is the way it is and this is what we are going to do period. He said that the reasoning behind the word client was to make people feel and become more involved in their own care and to begin an era of teaching and bringing the level of medical education up so that clients will not feel that Doctors are just swooping in and telling them what is going to happen but that they participate in decsions and therefore become clients interactive vs patients subject to whatever they are told.

Just the way it was explained to me.

I have enever called a Pt a client except in the endless careplans I wrote. I usually call my Pts by their first name if that is ok or if they are an elder I use the obliigatory Mr or Mrs or Ms ad name etc.

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