Health care versus Medical care

Health needs very few things:

• clean drinking water for all mankind,

• three square healthy meals uncontaminated,
• clean surroundings for dwelling,
• tranquility of mind, and
• moderate exercise on a regular basis.

None of these are the concern of modern medicine.

Health is our birth right.
Our inbuilt immune system will keep us going as long as it could.
One should see his/her doctor at the first sign of anything going astray with one’s body or mind.
The greatest discovery of science in this century has been the discovery of man’s ignorance.
Physicians deliver medical care to their patients.
They do not deliver “health” to patients.
A patient’s health condition is partly their responsibility.
It is an individual responsibility for all of us to take the best care of ourselves that we can.
Medical care deals not only with problems of disease and injury, but also
with problems of birth,
death, and
living-problems that are separate from disease or injury.
 FUNCTIONS OF MEDICAL CARE
• Assessment of health status:
• Determination of wellness or diagnosis of illness
• Certification of health status
• Prognostication: Prognostication makes an assertion about the future health status of the person and,
in its classic form, a statement about expectancy of life.
• Curing of illness
• Prolongation of life
• Alleviation of morbidity
• Reduction of disability

Curing is an undisputed function of medical care.

Prolongation of life and alleviation of morbidity constitute the chief health-related functions
of medical care.
• The saving of lives in acute life-threatening emergencies
 • Care-helping to cope with illness:
• Demonstration of humane concern, Palliation of symptoms; Medical care encompasses a demonstration of humane concern, palliative
treatment for discomfort, a set of rules for the conduct of the sick role with instructions for their application, necessary assistance with
activities of daily living, and other elements that manifest caring.
• These caring activities help the ill person cope with his afliction, provide succor, and relieve pain and suffering. Instruction in the sick role.
• A demonstration of caring by the therapist may be the prescribing of drugs. Nonspecific remedies such as sedatives, tranquilizers, and
analgesics improving the quality of life,
• to preventing or to minimizing the poor quality of life associated with chronic disease:
• to the relief of pain, disfigurement, disability and Physical and Mental Dysfunction
• all commonly prescribed drugs, probably serve more to palliate symptoms and help the patient to cope with illness than to cure or other
wise alter the natural course of events.
• Assistance for the ill in activities of daily living

The patient receiving good care may have incurable disease or permanent handicaps, but he may gain
satisfaction another affective benefits from learning how to cope with illness, how best to perform the role of
invalid, or how to die.
 • Separation of the ill from the well:
• Limiting the communication of illness, to control spread of contagious disease or undesirable
behavior. This isolation function is performed most commonly by the mental institution or
nursing home, where the segregation may be amplified by the location of the facility some
distance from the community it serves. The short-term general hospital also separates the
inpatient from his usual social environment and sharply limits his social contacts.
 • Prevention of illness
• Medical care includes preventive medical services such as immunization, health
education, genetic counseling, and nutritional services to individual persons. Prevention
reduces the probability of death or illness in individuals and the rates of these in a
community.
• preventive or curative measures: large and measurable effect on the life expectancy of the
population as a whole
 • improving the quality of life
• to preventing or to minimizing the poor quality of life associated with chronic disease
• to the relief of pain,
• disfigurement,
• disability and
• Physical and Mental Dysfunction
• reduction of the death rate