The doctor's functions include not only relief from symptoms, but the prevention of disease and its cure when possible. Moreover, modem medicine realizes that the whole human being is always involved-not just one spot of pain or disability. The doctor studies the patient as a complete unit, including both mind and body and the effects on mind and body of the patient's surroundings or environment.
The doctor sees people nowadays for periodic physical and mental examinations, for study before the insurance company undertakes insurance, and for a survey before the person undertakes any employment or enters on any new activity. The doctor has to know why the patient wants an examination. Is he or she contemplating marriage or giving birth to a child? Does the young man or woman want to engage in sports that carry with them hazards to life and health? Is the young man trying to get into the armed services, or is he trying to get out of them? Is the woman trying to find an alibi for avoiding some unpleasant duty or relationship? The doctor must evaluate the situation, because the nature of the patient's symptoms and his method of description may be greatly influenced by his reasons for being examined.
When you see the doctor, he will be interested first in relieving you of the distress which in most instances caused you to seek his advice. In connection with this immediate problem he will want to find out about your background-the family, social, or business situation in which you live, and how that relates to your trouble. Then too, the doctor has the responsibility of protecting others from hazards that arise out of your condition.
Diagnosis
Proper treatment of any condition depends on a knowledge of its causes. The process of finding out the cause of a condition is called diagnosis. Most conditions have not only immediate causes but also contributing causes. A man may have a broken arm from getting hit by a motorcar; perhaps he was blind in one eye and would not have been hit by the car had he been able to see it. A person gets tuberculosis when invaded by the germ of tuberculosis if his body is such as to be unable to overcome the germ. His body may have been weakened by under nutrition and exposure to cold and damp. Moreover, his germs may have come in overwhelming numbers from a boarder who had the disease, and who lived closely crowded with the family and did not know how to dispose properly of his sputum.
One of the first steps in making a diagnosis of a disease is to get a record of the patient's life and environment related to his trouble. This the doctors call a "history." Some remote fact in the patient's past may carry the chief responsibility for his condition. If a prospective mother has German measles during the first three months of pregnancy, the child when born may be damaged in the eyes, the hearing or the heart. A difficult childbirth may be responsible for cerebral palsy in the child. A man may get ulcers in the nose from inhaling chromium substances at his work. A woman may have a swollen eye because she touched it with a finger contaminated by some substance to which she is especially sensitive. A baby may have eczema because of sensitivity to milk. An executive may have high blood pressure because he is constantly at war with his employees and the board of directors. These are contributing causes with direct manifestations in body disturbances. Sometimes, however, the causes are remote. The mind seems to play a part in affecting the part of the body that may succumb to disease.
The Examination
After the doctor has inquired carefully into the life history of the patient as related to his symptoms or his disease, a physical and laboratory examination may follow. A physical examination may vary from a casual use of inspection, palpation, auscultation, percussion and testing of reflexes, to the use of a great variety of instruments which now extend the senses of the doctor.
Inspection involves use of the eyes. The doctor can see eruptions on the skin, bumps below the surface which stretch the skin, ulcers, bruises, swellings, loss of hair or nails, redness of the throat, fluids coming from the eyes or nose or nipples of the breasts.
With his trained fingers he can feel the margin of the liver, lumps on the smooth surfaces of inner organs, organs out of place, areas of tenderness, broken bones or other disturbances.
He can hear, with his ear alone or with the aid of a stethoscope, changes in the sounds of the lungs and heart and intestines.
He can thump the chest and abdomen and detect areas of fluid or solidity. The reflexes, like the knee jerk, and reactions in the skin tell him about the integrity of the nervous system.
With a variety of instruments, he can look into the eye with the ophthalmoscope, the ear with the otoscope, the nose with the rhinoscope, the throat with the laryngoscope and the pharyngoscope, the lungs with the bronchoscope, the stomach with the gastroscope, the bladder with the cystoscope, and the rectum with the proctoscope. With the sphygmomanometer he measures the blood pressure; with the electrocardiograph he records the motions of the heart; with the basal metabolic apparatus he determines the rate of the body chemistry. The X-ray shows changes in organs and tissues far below the surface of the body. A spirometer may be used to determine the amount of air taken in by the lungs during respiration.
The X-Ray
One of the most important devices ever invented to help doctors in diagnosis of disease is the X-ray. By the use of this equipment, accompanied by various substances taken by mouth or injected into various cavities, all sorts of changes can be detected in their earliest stages. Your dentist uses X-ray to find cavities in teeth or abscessesa at the roots of teeth. The brain specialist is helped in finding tumors or abscessesin the brain and spinal cord. The nose and throat specialist uses X-ray, particularly for finding trouble in the sinuses. The earliest signs of tuberculosis or silicosis in the lungs may be seen in X-ray pictures. The gastroenterologist who specializes in conditions of the stomach and intestines uses X-ray to locate ulcers or tumors in the stomach and duodenum, or in other portions of the thirty feet of intestines. Indeed, every specialty in medicine has been so greatly helped by X-ray that it must be considered one of the greatest discoveries ever made in medical science.
How To Choose A Doctor
Now how do you get a doctor to consult? You can call the medical society and ask them for a list of reputable licensed doctors. A qualified man will be a graduate of a qualified medical school and will probably have had an internship. He will probably be on the staff of a hospital. He will be licensed as a doctor by the state in which you live.
An ethical doctor does not send out or publish advertisements about himself and his competence. He usually has an established place of residence and an office in a building or in his home. He will be well and favorably known in the community, including his church, lodge, and service club groups.
A competent doctor will take an interest in you as a person as well as an interest as a patient. A good doctor is not reluctant to request another opinion if it seems to be needed in any case, nor does he object to being dismissed and having another doctor summoned if for any reason the patient has lost confidence.
The decision as to what and how much a doctor should tell the patient or the family about an illness must rest with the doctor. He will make his decision on the basis of his knowledge of the person and of the family. Most doctors are unwilling to lie to patients or their families to serve some doubtful psychological purpose. Yet circumstances may arise when the patient's fears are such as to demand that the doctor dissemble in giving his verdicts.
You, as a patient, owe your doctor your confidence and all the help that you can give him in finding out what is wrong. You owe him compliance in following his instructions, if you want to get the maximum benefit of his knowledge and experience.
About The Author
David Crawford is the CEO and owner of a Male Enhancement Pills company known as Male Enhancement Group which is dedicated to researching and comparing male enhancement products in order to determine which male enhancement product is safer and more effective than other products on the market.
Copyright 2009 David Crawford of http://www.maleenhancementgroup.com/. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.
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