Recently in these emails, there have been
- cancer sufferers
- cancer victims
- cancer survivors.
Since when with people with cancer become sufferers and victims? I detest the word survivor as well but sufferers and victims? Really?
These were included in the titles of actual news articles. The reporters need a bit of sensitivity training I think.
2 comments:
This is an interesting thought, Caroline. I'd love to hear more from you about how others should describe cancer patients.
I worked with students with disabilities for many years. We tried to use people first language. Instead of "he is autistic" we said "Carl is a child with autism". Maybe instead of cancer survivor, they could say women with cancer or men with cancer. Cancer doesn't need to be the first defining word.
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