Patient

Abstract

Patient, when used in a medical context today, is a noticeably odd word since many of its uses convey a sense that is almost the opposite of the one that it originally signified. As a non-medical term, its continuity of meaning is striking. It first appeared in English as an adjective in the 14th century from the French and ultimately the Latin in which language it expressed the idea of enduring hardship. Patient has also long been associated with virtues such as being tolerant, obedient, and painstaking. But from its first appearance, patient also figured as a noun, meaning a person bearing difficulties without complaint. It was not much of a jump from there for the word to signify a person with an injury or disease and from there to mean one undergoing medical treatment. Geoffrey Chaucer in the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales uses the word in this way.In the 18th century, medical and non-medical meanings coexisted. But as doctors appropriated and narrowed the meaning of patient, the word's reference to someone suffering in any other sense than the medical, from unrequited love, for example, disappeared. This eclipse was almost final by the end of the 19th century. The cause can probably be laid at the door of the hospital. Although hospitals have existed since antiquity, the idea that they were the best places to treat the sick poor only really took hold in the Enlightenment. After that hospitals became the accepted site for medical treatment.From the start, the bedridden inmates of hospitals were known as patients and hospital governors made rules regulating the behaviour of these people who were meant to acquiesce gratefully to their treatment. However, in the 18th century, patients, besides being sick individuals, began to be considered as populations and became a statistical category essential to the running of the modern state. By the 20th century, the taxonomy of patients had proliferated to include such terms as inpatients and outpatients. Nevertheless, patient still largely implied a grateful recipient of medical care. In recent years, as an adjective, the word has been combined to construct terms that signify the very opposite of obedience: patient-power, patient-centred. Yet, and here's the irony, despite the connotations of deference, behaving patiently was perhaps one of the few resources the sick poor ever had to exercise some subtle control over the clinical encounter. Patient, when used in a medical context today, is a noticeably odd word since many of its uses convey a sense that is almost the opposite of the one that it originally signified. As a non-medical term, its continuity of meaning is striking. It first appeared in English as an adjective in the 14th century from the French and ultimately the Latin in which language it expressed the idea of enduring hardship. Patient has also long been associated with virtues such as being tolerant, obedient, and painstaking. But from its first appearance, patient also figured as a noun, meaning a person bearing difficulties without complaint. It was not much of a jump from there for the word to signify a person with an injury or disease and from there to mean one undergoing medical treatment. Geoffrey Chaucer in the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales uses the word in this way. In the 18th century, medical and non-medical meanings coexisted. But as doctors appropriated and narrowed the meaning of patient, the word's reference to someone suffering in any other sense than the medical, from unrequited love, for example, disappeared. This eclipse was almost final by the end of the 19th century. The cause can probably be laid at the door of the hospital. Although hospitals have existed since antiquity, the idea that they were the best places to treat the sick poor only really took hold in the Enlightenment. After that hospitals became the accepted site for medical treatment. From the start, the bedridden inmates of hospitals were known as patients and hospital governors made rules regulating the behaviour of these people who were meant to acquiesce gratefully to their treatment. However, in the 18th century, patients, besides being sick individuals, began to be considered as populations and became a statistical category essential to the running of the modern state. By the 20th century, the taxonomy of patients had proliferated to include such terms as inpatients and outpatients. Nevertheless, patient still largely implied a grateful recipient of medical care. In recent years, as an adjective, the word has been combined to construct terms that signify the very opposite of obedience: patient-power, patient-centred. Yet, and here's the irony, despite the connotations of deference, behaving patiently was perhaps one of the few resources the sick poor ever had to exercise some subtle control over the clinical encounter.