Being careless and compromising one’s health is a dangerous idea. It can be detrimental to our day to day activities, or even to our lives. Right from a young age we are taught habits that help us lead healthy lives, and with the advent of modern medicine, the definition of health care has become universal.
Health care is the maintenance or improvement of health through diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical or mental impairments in a human being. For most of us health care is a step-by-step process that is delivered by a doctor or a health care professional. The percentage of world’s population without access to modern medicine has fallen to around 30% in the last decade. It is the shared decision making of a doctor and a patient that has considerably increased life expectancy in this decade.
Doctors play an important role and sometimes make all the difference to a patient’s life. Here are some factors that explain the importance of a doctor:
Experience: Doctors receive several years of training before they start practicing medicine. This includes about 10 years of course-work which involves a specialization, followed by an internship and many years of tedious training as a junior doctor. Doctors who treat us come with adequate experience to handle the complexity of a human body.
Expertise and Skill: Doctors can sometimes mean the difference between life and death, and this places upon them the responsibility to be nothing short of an expert. Doctors make choices all the time. Acting quickly without delay and showing patience while carrying out diagnosis and treatment are life-time projects for doctors.
Specialization: Unlike ancient medical practices, today patients can visit specialized doctor who are experts in specific fields such as gynaecology, gastroenterology, cardiology, neurology, etc. Specialized doctors link primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of care and sometimes integrate with other specialists if multiple care is required. This is particularly important for patients with chronic illnesses and those diagnosed with diseases that might be fatal.
Research and Technological innovation: Research in the field of medicine is heavily funded, and rightly so. Doctors working in the field of medical research have made technological advancements that have made landmark changes to the way we receive treatment today. These include cancer nanotherapy, wireless interfaces, stem-cell research, and many more.
Control and Cure: In the event that a disease breaks out, a doctor’s research and understanding of medicine can go a great extent to control the epidemic. After a disease or an illness is brought under control, a doctor’s expertise might completely cure a patient. Chronic illness can be controlled as doctors strive to help the patients lead a normal life without restrictions in their lifestyle.
Direct impact: Doctors work directly with people to bring cure and impact lives. This requires a great deal of patience because medically treating a patient also involves emotionally supporting them to gain their trust while believing in one’s own medical expertise.
Doctor-Patient Relationship: A lot of research has gone into charting out the right ways in which a doctor must build relationship with patients. The quality of a doctor-patient rapport is important to both, and it is built on mutual respect, knowledge, and trust. A doctor-patient relationship is important because it helps get a detailed understanding of the disease and this results in better diagnosis and treatment.
Environments replete with unaware dangers like war zones or conflict zones with extremely impoverished conditions, have an urgent need for doctors. For people with chronic and traumatic illnesses, a doctor’s medical care is the only hope to lead a healthy life.
During the last 10 years, avoidable death rate decreased 38% and unavoidable death rate was only 10%. Life expectancy increased 3%, and we see a direct co-relation between advancements in modern medicine and improved standards of living. Further, medical machines and computers that power them become smaller, faster, and smarter – making the entire health care system more accessible and effective for patients.
Although technological advancements aid the process of health care, at the crux of these advancements is the humanitarian work of a doctor and his or her practice of medicine. Not all human bodies work the same way, and every patient needs an individual diagnosis. Therefore, it takes endurance to predict the most effective treatment for every patient’s unique needs – and in such situations one can only trust a doctor’s expertise.