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.

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 (who may object to some implications of the word patient). Individuals who use or have used psychiatric services, which may or may not have been by force against their will, may alternatively refer to themselves as Consumers (Users in the UK) or Survivors. Some argue that it can be necessary to be a "bad" "noncompliant" patient in order to recover.

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 incorrectly use the term patient in reference to residents. Similarly, those receiving home health care are called clients.

Etymology

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".

• Client, whose Latin root cliens means "one who is obliged to make supplications to a powerful figure for material assistance", carries a sense of subservience.
• Consumer suggests both a financial relationship and a particular social/political stance, implying that health care services operate exactly like all other commercial markets. Many reject that term on the grounds that consumerism is an individualistic concept that fails to capture the particularity of health care systems.

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).