When first asked to write about patient care it seemed an easy enough task. As a healthcare provider I give and do patient care. However, I started thinking just what is it I mean by ‘patient care’ and what’s involved when I am doing it. “the services rendered by members of the health professions for the benefit of a patient” and then recommends we also see the definition of ‘treatment’: “care of a patient.” This is too vague for me to get a real picture of what patient care means. It also equates care with treatment.

Newer health care professionals, those I arbitrarily identified as having less than 3 years of practice experience, reported that patient care is mostly doing what patients can’t do for themselves. In this they included providing physical care of patients’ bodies and bodily functions. In the intensive care unit setting, younger professionals described monitoring and manipulating the technology and medicines that support breathing and circulation as the patient care they do. More experienced health care professionals mentioned other aspects that in total make up their patient care: including the patient in discussions of plans and goals; providing patient education and maintaining their own professional knowledge through continuing education; addressing patients’ spiritual needs; and, being supportive to patients and their families.

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