A patient who is outside a hospital, but receives medical aid from it.
2.
A medical patient who receives treatment at a hospital, especially in an emergency room, but is not admitted to stay overnight. Distinguished from inpatient, who is assigned to a room to reside there while being treated.
... elaborate and painstaking study of the case with all the modern methods will bring you to the same conclusion as that sensed within forty-five seconds by this keen-eyed old sleuth-hound of the fever trails. Time and again, in my interne days, have I gone the rounds of the wards or the out-patient departments with some kindly-faced, keen-eyed old Sherlock Holmes of the profession, and seen him point to a new case across the ward with the question: "When did that pneumonia come in?" or pick out a pain-drawn, ashy mask in the waiting line, with an abrupt, "Bring ... — Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
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