Talk:Clinical

Unnecessary Dichotomy

Re

Clinical (or bedside) medical practice, based on observation and treatment of patients as opposed to theory or basic science.

Nowadays it isn't likely to be exclusively one or the other. Can we say

Clinical (or bedside) medical practice, emphasising observation and treatment of patients rather than theory or basic science.

? Shannock9 (talk) 17:07, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

One of our language's more annoyingly muddled words

The words "clinic" and "clinical" seem to have become almost completely mangled in their variety of almost contradictory senses. Since they come from the Greek "cline" meaning "bed", they must have been originally introduced into English to denote bedside treatment of patients, but now a "clinic" is a place for walk-in patients, not on their beds at all. But "clinical" as used in the medical world often means "of or relating to the bedside treatment of patients". So "clinic" and "clinical" have evolved contradictory meanings. Oh, and then they both have other unpredictable meanings too, such as (according to my Collins English Dictionary), the US meaning of "clinic" as a place where medical lectures are given (not at the bedside); or a clinical lecture itself; or an advice or training centre. Not to speak of the strange use of "clinical" in the sense of cold, detached, scientific - the opposite of a good bedside manner. It reminds me of the word "vegetative" and its multiplicity of unpredictable meanings unrelated to its etymology. Highly educated people like doctors and scientists should be more careful with their words. UBJ 43X (talk) 21:14, 5 December 2012 (UTC)