Patientology

Combining medical sociology and anthropology to create a new perspective on the health sciences, Patientology: Toward the Study of Patients will revolutionize how health professionals and educators and their students view patient care and the patient's place in the health care system.

Patients are critical to health care delivery, yet their concerns and perspective are frequently lost in translation or, at worst, blatantly ignored. Patients don't even have a place in organizational charts. Yet patients deserve their own branch of science, and author Pamela J. Brink, RN, PhD, FAAN, has started a conversation about giving patients that niche in a new area of study called "patientology." This work is a brief overview of concepts such as medical sociology and nursing will prompt further research and delineation.

Many well-researched and experience-based scholarly works cover patients and patient care, yet access remains a problem. Easily accessible patient-focused discussion-especially on the Internet-requires an umbrella concept, and Patientology is a step in that direction.

Patients deserve to have their voices heard. It's up to health care professionals to take a long, hard look at their own practices to assess whether they have ears to hear.