Labels

   Last week the intern that I work with told me that when they write up thier case studies they cannot say things like "a diabetic person" or "an asthmatic person". They have to say "a person with diabetes" or "a person with asthma".The reason for this type of wording is because if you say "diabetic person" you are viewing them as just a disease and not a person. It is inappropriate labelling. She pointed this out because she had heard me say this once and wanted to make me aware of it as I was going to be working with other interns this summer.
   This bothered me a little bit. To me this seemed to be hair splitting. The difference btween a "diabetic person" and a "person with diabetes" seemed to be very small. I wondered if my way of thinking was wrong and if I was becoming one of those out of date,out of touch health care professionals that have no business being in health care anymore.
   It occurred to me that I had a pool of people that I could ask for help. I could ask the members of my Toastmaster's club what they thought. Members of a club that fosters good communication and good leadership skills would be the perfect group for me to take my question.
   I sent a mass email to the members with the situation and my question. I got several responses. The difference while small to me,was a very large difference to most of those who answered.
   I was still troubled though. I know how I treat my pateints and how I think. It would never occur to me to treat anyone as anything but a whole person. My actions support this, but I guess my language does not.
   That wasn't really the problem though. The problem for me is that if using the phrase "diabetic person" is wrong, then all descritive labels we use are also wrong. Calling me a "pharmacist", for instance, would be inappropriate labelling as you are looking at me as only my profession, not as a person. The correct way to say this would be "a person who works as a pharmacist". "Woman" would not be appropriate becasue it is an inappropriate label that views a person only through gender.
   I brought this point up to C. While he said that I did make a valid point, his opinion was that you want to avoid attaching negative labels to people.
   I could understand this, but to me "diabetic" is not a negative label. It is neutral. It is a medical condition.
   Part of my challenge is that inconsistancy bothers me. The intern didn't say that the reason for saying " a person with..." was to avoid a negative label. The reason was to avoid looking at the person as a medical condition. The purpose was to see them as a whole person and not as just one thing.
   Assuming that C is right and it is avoidance of a negative label then why are some negative labels all right and others are not?
   People use the phrase "drunk driver" without thinking about it. Unless the person is at that moment driving while intoxicated, the correct phrase should be "person who has driven drunk". Felon and thief are two more examples. Unless someone is comitting a theft or felony at that moment, you cannot call them that. The correct phrase is a person who has stolen or a person that has comitted a felony. Doing otherwise is looking at that person only as an act that they have done. Not as a human being, not as a whole person. If it is wrong to label someone because they have a medical condition, it is equally wrong to label someone for something they have done in thier past.
   While I'm on the subject on labels, I want to bring up another label that I've seen lately,the word "Mormon". It has been used to describe Republican candidate Mitt Romney and also Jon Huntsman. I have seen the phrase "member of the Mormon Church" and the word "Mormon" applied to both men. For the record, there is no Mormon Church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has gone through a few minor name changes since it was founded, but never was the word "Mormon" ever  appeared in the of the name of the church. If the word "Mormon" refers to someone who believes in the Book of Mormon, then why aren't followers of Judiaism called "Talmudites", followers of Islam called "Koranites" and Christains called "Bible-ites"? ( I know this is off the subject, but I had to get it off my chest.)
  I'm sure the intern has no idea what kind of a can of worms she has opened for me. For now I will rewrite the case studies to conform to thier standards and think carefully before I speak.