ABSTRACT
Given the many aspects of healthcare that make it problematic, it is useful to identify the people receiving care and what authors can understand about them. Whether they describe someone as a patient or a customer or a consumer changes the way authors relate to them as the metaphors for a person receiving healthcare designate different expectations and require different responses. The patient role emphasizes the relationship between the person receiving care and the person delivering care. This is different from the customer and consumer roles and is an important consideration in understanding healthcare meaningful experiences. In the same way, the person receiving care in the role of a customer or the role of a consumer is searching for alignment between their beliefs, values, and principles within those roles as they interact with healthcare organizations or with people delivering care.
