The health care system has experienced unmatched change and
growth in recent years, but especially during the past twenty years. These
changes reflect a multitude of developments, including fundamental shifts in
the philosophical and political foundations, advances in the technology of
medicine, evolving consumer's expectations toward the physicians, and different
characteristics of the population and the healthcare problems they experience.
The primary purpose of medicine (a helping profession) is to serve the needs of
the patients. Physicians advise the possible cure and assistance to the
patients by competently using the technology and their knowledge, for the
proper treatment of any structural or metabolic defect, and restoration of a
patient's function.
The physicians can practice both as an individual or as a
team member. The main central function of physicians is to identify the problem
by making an accurate diagnosis that is affecting the patients. The function of
the physician is to make the patient feel better. In that case, for the
physician, a certain amount of strictness, paternalism, and domination may be
necessary. The conditions that are either self-limited or beyond the
capabilities of medicine forces the patients to visit the doctors.
Physicians also decide:
Educational role of physicians:
The educational function of physicians is different from the
research functions of the doctors. All physicians are educators, and one of the
primary roles of the physician in the doctor-patient relationship is to impart
information in a useful manner—that is, to educate. The physicians also teach,
at the bedside, in the hospital, and in the classroom when training medical
interns, residents, and students. The problem of how to prepare physicians to
be good educators needs to be investigated, as most of the physician's skills
as educators are self-taught, with varying degrees of success. Although only a
few physicians become full-time administrators, most must perform at least some
administrative functions, either in the more formal functions within a
practice, a hospital, or a medical school setting or running of their private
practices.
Finally, all physicians are noteworthy citizens because of
their status in society and level of education. The social responsibility of
physicians for becoming involved in issues that are not health issues per se
requires consideration.
Due to the increasing size of the industry and its impact on
the economy, the future physicians should adequately understand the healthcare
system and also need to understand the government's participation. There
probably will be a more significant role for physicians to contribute to the
elucidation of health policy issues and to the implementation of health
policies than there has been in the past.
In future, the physician will probably also have increasing
responsibility in nonmedical issues also, relating to the environment, to
violence, and to aggression which impacts directly on the quality of survival.
Physicians in the future will also need to work increasingly with other health
professionals and with other sectors of society in designing and implementing
policies related to healthcare costs.
and their containment in the context of continuously improving the quality care
for the whole population.
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