patienthood

plural patienthoods

1. countableuncountableThe state of being a patient or of being ill.

   Here, patienthood invoked an epistemic investigation into causes and results and motivated decisions about seeking or rejecting cure.

   2018, Ahmed Ragab, Piety and Patienthood in Medieval Islam

   3 more examples

   Because of their inability to resolve their personal crises, these assassins will project their individual patienthoods upon society and, in their attempt to universalize their personal pain, could focus on the destruction of a leading figure or monument.

   2006, R. Hrair Dekmejian, Spectrum of Terror

   Getting better involves not only the ability to use the injured limbs again, but regaining the freedom to emerge “from self-absorption, sickness, patienthood, and confinement, to the spaciousness of health, of full being, of thereal world.”

   2014, Ruth Behar, The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart

   Thus, the notion of patienthood seems to be changing from these two prevailing notions to a cultural relativistic idea that believes it to represent cultural and linguistic variations stemming from local beliefs, meanings, and practices related to the definition of health, illness, and health care seeking.

   2015, Hesook Suzie Kim, The Essence of Nursing Practice: Philosophy and Perspective, page 35