Patient

In semantics, the patient is the passive part of a process.

A patient is the name given to any person who is ill or injured and is being treated by, or in need of treatment by, a physician or other medical professional.

Health consumer or health care consumer is another name for patient, usually used by some governmental agencies, insurance companies, and/or patient groups.

In the case of a terminal patient, death is approaching, and no treatment aimed at curing is available, just palliative care.

The word patient is derived from the Latin pati meaning "to suffer".

See also

This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. If an article link referred you here, you might want to go back and fix it to point directly to the intended page.

See also: Patient, Death, Illness, Injured, Latin, Medicine, Palliative care, Patient empowerment, Patients' Bill of Rights