A patient is any person who receives medical attention, care, or treatment. The person is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician or other medical professional, although one who is visiting a physician for a routine check-up may also be viewed as a patient.

Outpatients and inpatients

An outpatient is a patient who is not hospitalized overnight but who visits a hospital, clinic, or associated facility for diagnosis or treatment. Treatment provided in this fashion is called ambulatory care. Outpatient surgery eliminates inpatient hospital admission, reduces the amount of medication prescribed, and uses a doctor's time more efficiently. More procedures are now being performed in a surgeon's office, termed office-based surgery, rather than in an operating room. Outpatient surgery is suited best for healthy people undergoing minor or intermediate procedures (limited urologic, ophthalmologic, or ear, nose, and throat procedures and procedures involving the extremities).

An inpatient on the other hand is "admitted" to the hospital and stays overnight or for an indeterminate time, usually several days or weeks (though some cases, like coma patients, have been in hospitals for years).

Alternative terminology

Due to concerns such as dignity, human rights and political correctness, the term "patient" is not always used to refer to a person receiving health care. Other terms that are sometimes used include health consumer, health care consumer or client. These may be used by governmental agencies, insurance companies, patient groups, or health care facilities. Individuals who use or have used psychiatric services may alternatively refer to themselves as consumers, users, or survivors.

In nursing homes and assisted living facilities, the term resident is generally used in lieu of patient,, but it is not uncommon for staff members at such a facility to use the term patient in reference to residents. Similarly, those receiving home health care are called clients.

Views

Some argue that it can be necessary to be a "bad" or "noncompliant" patient in order to recover.

See also

• Casualty
• Doctor-patient relationship
• e-Patient
• Patient advocacy
• Patient empowerment
• Patients Not Patents (an advocacy group)
• Patients' Bill of Rights (US)
• Radiological protection of patients
• Virtual patient

External links

• 
  a peer-reviewed article published in the British Medical Journal's (BMJ) first issue dedicated to patients in its 160 year history
• 
  review article with views on the meaning of the words "good doctor" vs. "good patient"