To urge the medical community to reconsider the use of the term 'provider' when referring to physicians due to ethical, professional, and practical concerns.
Approach:
Key Findings:
The term 'provider' emerged in the 1960s with Medicare and Medicaid and has since obscured differences in clinician roles.
Referring to physicians as 'providers' risks framing the patient-physician relationship as transactional.
Language influences professional identity and behavior, potentially leading to 'deprofessionalization' in medicine.
Interpretation:
The use of the term 'provider' may undermine the ethical foundations of the patient-physician relationship and affect patient understanding and trust.
Limitations:
The paper does not address the complexities of multidisciplinary team dynamics in detail.
It may not account for the varying perceptions of the term 'provider' across different health care settings.
Conclusion:
Language in health care carries ethical significance and should reflect professional identity and accountability, promoting patient-centered care.
Patients with lower nonischemic resting full-cycle ratio values had more repeat revascularizations despite similar 2-year major cardiovascular event rates.
