Two important decisions we must make when worried about our health are when to seek the help of a professional health-carer, and whom to consult.
Most of the time we have no doubts about when we need to consult a health professional. When the need arises, we all want to be sure that, for instance, someone with adequate knowledge and training prescribes our spectacles, fills our dental cavities, takes out our inflamed appendix and delivers our babies (though untrained taxi-drivers have been known to make quite a good job of the latter!).
Severe injuries or acute, very worrying symptoms prompt you to call the family doctor or hurry to the nearest hospital casualty or emergency medical service. Less severe symptoms will lead you to visit the family doctor or nearest medical clinic, dentist, optometrist and so on. Minor injuries and symptoms can often be treated from the home first-aid kit or with over-the-counter remedies, or with well-known, tried-and-proven measures such as applying ice-packs to a sprain and elevating the injured joint. It’s usually easy to tell when things aren’t improving as they should be and you need professional help.
Professional health care falls into two broad divisions: orthodox and alternative. Alternative therapies and health practices have become increasingly popular in the past few decades. You may want to consult an alternative health professional for some problems. This may be because you’ve had bad experiences with conventional medical services, or because you’ve tried orthodox practitioners without getting relief or satisfaction.
Orthodox health care
The practitioners of these professions are trained in government-approved tertiary education centres and must satisfy standards of knowledge and competence before being granted license to practice. Their professional behaviour is monitored within their profession and, to a certain extent, by State law.
Orthodox health care has been criticized for being too disease-orientated. This is a bit unfair, because until recently people only sought health care when something went wrong, so the training of practitioners focused mainly on health disorders.
The public image of the medical profession has taken a great dive during my lifetime. When I was a child, I got the impression that all doctors were kindly, caring, ‘clever’ (they made sick people better), and had wonderful bedside manners. They lived in nice houses and had jars of jelly beans on their desks. What a role model! No wonder I chose to study medicine.
By the time I entered practice, doctors were being accused of being authoritarian, judgemental, arrogant, poor listeners, poor communicators, careless of their patients’ feelings and time, and too interested in having the biggest house and flashest car in town. Today the complaints are louder than ever. What went wrong?
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