Doctor's visit
The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (July 2011) |
A doctor's visit, also known as a physician office visit or a consultation, or a ward round in an
Procedure
The four great cornerstones of diagnostic medicine are anatomy (structure: what is there), physiology (how the structure/s work), pathology (what goes wrong with the anatomy and physiology), and psychology (mind and behavior). In addition, the physician should consider the patient in their 'well' context rather than simply as a walking medical condition. This means the socio-political context of the patient (family, work, stress, beliefs) should be assessed as it often offers vital clues to the patient's condition and further management.
A patient typically presents a set of complaints (the
The next task is to enlist the patient's agreement to a management plan, which will include treatment as well as plans for follow-up. Importantly, during this process the healthcare provider educates the patient about the causes, progression, outcomes, and possible treatments of his ailments, as well as often providing advice for maintaining health.
The physician's expertise comes from his knowledge of what is healthy and normal contrasted with knowledge and experience of other people who have had similar symptoms (unhealthy and abnormal), and the proven ability to relieve it with medicines (pharmacology) or other therapies about which the patient may initially have little knowledge.
Duration
A survey in the United States came to the result that, overall, a physician sees each patient for 13 to 16 minutes.
For the patient, the time spent at the hospital can be substantially longer due to various waiting times, administrative steps or additional care from other health personnel. Regarding wait time, patients that are well informed of the necessary procedures in a clinical encounter, and the time it is expected to take, are generally more satisfied even if there is a longer waiting time.[3]
Web-based health care
With increasing access to computers and published online medical articles, the internet has increased the ability to perform self-diagnosis instead of going to a professional health care provider. Doctors may be fearful of misleading information and being inundated by emails from patients which take time to read and respond to (time for which they are not paid).[4] About three-quarters of the U.S. population reports having a primary care physician, but the Primary Care Assessment Survey found "a significant erosion" in the quality of primary care from 1996 to 2000, most notably in the interpersonal treatment and thoroughness of physical examinations.[5]
Research and development
Analysis
A study systematically assessed
The National Institute on Aging has produced a list of "Tips for Talking With Your Doctor" that includes asking "if your doctor has any brochures, fact sheets, DVDs, CDs, cassettes, or videotapes about your health conditions or treatments" – for example if a patient's blood pressure was found to be high, the patient could get "brochures explaining what causes high blood pressure and what [the person] can do about it".[8]
Virtual doctor's visit
A
Software and health records
Electronic medical records could also be studied to quantify disease burdens – such as the number of deaths from antimicrobial resistance[22] – or help identify causes of, factors of, links between[23][24] and contributors to diseases,[25][26][27] especially when combined with genome-wide association studies.[28][29]
This may enable increased flexibility, improved disease surveillance, better medical product safety surveillance,[30] better public health monitoring (such as for evaluation of health policy effectiveness),[31][32] increased quality of care (via guidelines[33] and improved medical history sharing[34][35]), and novel life-saving treatments.See also
- House call
- Doctor-patient relationship
- General medical examination
References
- ^ a b c d e Medscape Physician Compensation Report: 2011
- ^ "Time that doctors spend with a patient". Our World in Data. Retrieved 7 March 2020.
- ^ Simple Tips to Improve Patient Satisfaction By Michael Pulia. American Academy of Emergency Medicine. 2011;18(1):18-19.
- ^ ECRI. Special Article: Internet Influence on Doctor/Patient Relationship Archived February 6, 2007, at the Wayback Machine. Health Technology Trends. June, 2006.
- S2CID 1336772.
- ^ "People may not always get helpful weight loss advice from their doctors, study finds". ABC News. Retrieved 17 January 2023.
- PMID 36510443.
- ^ "Tips for Talking With Your Doctor" (PDF). National Institute on Aging. May 2014. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
- ^ a b "What is TeleHealth?". Office for the Advancement of Telehealth. The Health Resources and Services Administration. March 2022. Retrieved 12 January 2024.
- ^ PMID 20467533.
- PMID 25500595.
- PMID 19119834.
- ^ PMID 17046097.
- S2CID 244923066.
- ^ Novak M. "Telemedicine Predicted in 1925". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
- ^ PMID 32885319.
- PMID 32738884.
- ^ "Telehealth Key to Maintaining Access to Addiction Recovery". www.aafp.org. Retrieved 27 January 2022.
- PMID 32220575.
- ^ "Benefits of Telemedicine". www.hopkinsmedicine.org. 18 January 2022. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
- PMID 26016484.
- PMID 35065702.
- S2CID 254129048.
- PMID 36669485.
- News article about the study: Kozlov, Max (23 January 2023). "Massive health-record review links viral illnesses to brain disease". Nature. 614 (7946): 18–19. from the original on 6 February 2023. Retrieved 15 February 2023.
- PMID 26582823.
- PMID 9250271.
- S2CID 57541937.
- PMID 29924316.
- PMID 20385806.
- PMID 34931012.
- PMID 28125393.
- PMID 25608033.
- S2CID 255966861.
- S2CID 210920454.
- PMID 35879075.
External links
- "Tips for Talking With Your Doctor" (PDF). National Institute on Aging. May 2014.