Corporate Speak and the Psychiatric Profession

Excerpt

Every profession has its own nomenclature. Initiation into the profession involves learning this language. Medicine also has it language, mostly Latin or Greek words that can transform ordinary matters such as a sore muscle into a myalgia and many sore muscles into polymyalgia. We continue to use these words when describing clinical matters. But in other domains there has been an increased use of words from the world of business. Phrases such as the “the bottom line,” have become ubiquitous. Along with these phrases, of course, come a series of practices adapted from modern corporate culture. We have “retreats” to do “strategic planning” to perfect our “vision and mission statements,” define “goals,” and delineate our “objectives and work plans.” We perform “continuous quality improvement.” With this language comes a change in how we describe and perceive our roles. We are “providers” of health care and the people who traditionally were known as “patients” are our “customers” or “consumers.” It might be argued, that aside from injury to the profession’s amour propre, these changes may be salutary; they mirror the changes that have taken place in our profession. The “old boys club” has been dismantled and its priestly language has been superseded by a new way of communicating, one better suited to our current free-market, non-hierarchal, consumer responsive Society. Questioning these new values and their accompanying manner of speech puts one at risk of being labeled a curmudgeon. However, since I’m a confirmed curmudgeon I’ll do just that. …