Healthcare Role and Organization Terms

What travels is not only the patient but a question, and a referral without a clear question tends to produce an unclear answer.

A registered dietitian is a credentialed nutrition professional who translates diet and nutrition science into individualized guidance supporting a patient's overall health.

Largely a North American profession by this name, since elsewhere the same work is divided among physiotherapists, nurses and physicians.

The defining feature is not the laboratory coat but the obligation to publish a method other people can use to prove the result wrong.

Discharge from hospital frequently turns on housing, money and who will help at home, which is the territory a medical social worker occupies.

Depth in one area is bought at the cost of breadth, which is why general care usually continues alongside.

A specialist who evaluates and treats people with communication and swallowing problems.

The word is loose in everyday speech, and several roles it gets applied to carry a formal title of technologist, reflecting longer training.

Distance stops being the obstacle, but a physical examination does not travel down a video link, so some visits cannot be replaced.

A surgeon who specializes in operating on organs inside the chest, including the heart and lungs.

A registered nurse who has additional education and training in how to care for people who have a wound, an ostomy (surgery to create an opening in the abdomen for a new path for urine or stool), or…