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Don’t Call Me ‘Provider’
“Healthcare provider” connotes a commodity, a widget. We doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants are much more than that.
The room was full of doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants. The speaker to this audience referenced the word “providers,” in an effort to be inclusive. When hearing that term, “provider,” a doctor in the room yelled out, “Physician!”
More and more, I see physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants being called “healthcare providers,” or “providers” for short. The reason is understandable: having to say (or type, or write) “physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants” time and time again becomes tiring. The term “provider” is short and encompasses all of those people in one fell swoop. And, it is not technically wrong: as a physician, I indeed “provide healthcare” to the patients I see in the community I serve.
I can’t stand it.
I am a doctor. I went to medical school after having worked my butt off in college to get stellar grades. After four years of a grueling medical education — accumulating hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt in the process — I spent six years working dozens upon dozens of hours per week for less than minimum wage (I trained in the era before residency work hour restrictions). I had to go…
