Photo courtesy of Gaithersburg-Washington Grove Volunteer Fire Department.I had an EMS-related meeting this past week, and an interesting point came up. When does a victim become a patient, or, unfortunately, a patient a victim?
In my mind, a victim is a sick person who hasn't received treatment or EMS contact yet. Whether it's someone entrapped in their car or someone having shortness of breath at home, they remain a victim. Even after dialing 911, that person is a victim until they can be reached and assessed by EMS personnel. And, of course, that person should never become a victim after they've become a patient. They remain in the care of EMS until care can be transferred to a higher level of definitive treatment (i.e., a hospital).
I found it an interesting comparison when brought up in conversation, and felt it was an interesting (albeit brief) rhetorical discussion.
Unrelated, I saw this today. Some of the victims are being treated here in Charlottesville at the UVA Healthsystem.
Enjoyed this post. I will not get into it but it had my brain putting together different permuations of the various tenses of words victim, responder and patient. I will never be able to read about victims being treated in a hospital without envisioning an emergency vehicle with EMT's racing on a call to the hospital in order to make them patients again. Come to think of it I think I read about someone who after being upset at being triaged at an ER decided to call 911 to be taken to another hospital. Once someone is dead are they just called a corpse or can they be called dead patients or dead victims?
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