Healthcare Role and Organization Terms
Health professionals, care teams, hospitals, agencies, and healthcare organizations. Browse definitions and meanings below.
What does PCP stand for?
PCP means primary care provider, and sometimes primary care physician. It is the clinician a person sees first for most problems, who handles what can be handled and refers onward what cannot. In many systems that referral is also what gives access to a specialist at all.
Specialist titles follow a pattern worth learning once. The ending -ologist marks someone who studies and treats a particular system: a cardiologist the heart, a nephrologist the kidneys, a dermatologist the skin. Where the ending is -iatrics or -iatry, the specialty is defined by a group of people rather than by an organ, as in pediatrics and geriatrics.
Terms in this topic
Alphabetical order-
The title carries no single meaning worldwide, since what an acupuncturist may train in, assess or treat is decided locally.
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Graduate level training beyond standard nursing preparation qualifies this clinician to diagnose conditions and manage treatment within a defined, state regulated scope of practice.
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Much of the work is not putting a person to sleep but keeping breathing, circulation and body chemistry steady while the surgery proceeds.
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The job sits at the seam where chemistry stops being about substances and starts being about how something stays alive.
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Most caregiving is unpaid and unrecorded, carried out by relatives who never chose the role and were never trained for it.
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Ordained religious leaders, and in hospitals a formal part of the care team rather than visitors from outside it.
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A clinical researcher studies health and disease using patient data or direct patient contact to help develop and evaluate new treatments.
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A clinician is a trained health professional who directly evaluates, diagnoses, or treats patients, as opposed to working solely in research or administration.
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Health services arranged as one connected path rather than a series of disconnected visits and handovers.
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Much of the job is spotting disease early, from decay and gum inflammation to the first signs of oral cancer.
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One of the few specialties where the same doctor examines the lesion, takes the biopsy and removes the cancer, often in one visit.
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The protected title is the practical difference, since anyone may call themselves a nutritionist while dietitian carries a defined training route behind it.
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Hormones travel everywhere, so this specialty is defined by the messenger rather than by a single organ or region of the body.
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A doctor who specializes in treating diseases of the ear, nose, and throat.
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A health professional trained in the care of persons with stomas, such as colostomies or urostomies.
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Outbreak investigation, risk factor studies and the evaluation of public health measures all sit with this population level specialist.
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Its remit is wide but not total, since meat and poultry, most supplements and much product advertising sit partly or wholly with other agencies.
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A doctor who specializes in diagnosing and treating disorders of the digestive system.
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A doctor who specializes in treating cancers of the female reproductive organs.
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A doctor who specializes in treating diseases of the female reproductive organs.