Labelling and care: what's in a name?

Sometimes when I say I'm an editor, the assumption is that I'm nothing more than a human spell check. I can spell, yes—but that is only a minute aspect of an editor's role. I won't delve into my 9–5 here; but I want to hone in on one part of my job that I feel quite strongly about.

Editing a healthcare publication comes with a certain level of responsibility. We work with content that discusses the individual realities of people—which cannot be generalised—but which we must generalise to discuss. So where does that leave us? Well, one of the bits I edit on many articles is the tendency to label a patient with their condition. For example, I usually change references such as ‘a dementia patient’ to ‘a person living with dementia’, or ‘a member of the LGBT community’ to ‘a person who identifies as LGBT’.

The concept of patient-centred care and of seeing and treating the person—not their disease—is one that was instilled in me from a young age. My parents, both nurses, owned three care homes, and branded them ‘Client-Centred Care Homes’ (CCCH) because of their philosophy to provide individualised care. I worked there caring for older people, and spending time with people who were living with brain injuries. As is the case for many healthcare organisations and staff, the importance of seeing our clients for who they were as people, rather than their conditions, was paramount.