The power of euphemism, from Medical Student Epithet Makes Patients Wary:
Patients reluctant to have a medical student sit in on their consultation are less worried if the student is introduced as a ‘trainee’ instead, a doctor wrote on Friday in Britain’s leading medical journal.Patients are much more willing to accept the presence of a ‘trainee doctor’ or even a ‘student doctor’ than a ‘medical student,’ Hany George El-Sayeh wrote in the British Medical Journal.
He said patients feared they would be seen by a scruffy, disinterested youth who might later report their intimacies in the bar.
Describing a student as a trainee doctor would also heighten the youngster’s esteem, he added. But trainees themselves ought to counter stereotypes by making a greater effort to appear interested, smart and punctual, he said.