Health & Medicine Essay Example
Health and medicine play a crucial part in the society today. The health of a nation is determined by the services given to the people by medical practitioners. Different departments work hand in hand in the health institutions to ensure well being of patients. However, there are many challenges that medical practitioners encounter in their work. These challenges are faced by both senior doctors and new interns. Some of the problems could be due to ignorant patients.Health & Medicine Essay Example
Inexperienced doctors face difficulties in their practice too. Researchers have invested time to find solutions to the health issue that have hit the world at large. However, this effort should be improved to ensure constant discovery of drugs to enhance health. . Medical research has brought a lot of progress in the health sector today. Most of the treatment drugs and medicine is a result of the efforts put by researchers.
One of the main challenges doctors face is the maintenance of high ethical practices. Sugarman (152) claims that doctors are required to observe high ethical practices as their work involves a lot of private information of patients. Details of patient age, sex, and health specifics are personal. They are therefore, needed to ensure that these details are kept private, and protected at all times. However, this has not been easy as the information always end up leaking to the whole staff in the hospital.Health & Medicine Essay Example
According to Royal College of Physicians of London (16), patients need to trust doctors in service. Patients do not feel safe in the care of such practitioners. Some doctors also have a difficulty in telling the truth to patients and supervisors. McDougall and Sokol (69) say that young medical practitioners always face humiliation from their superiors and older interns. They are expected to know everything they leant and put into practice without consulting. This has often made them cheat on results and reports of patients they have attended. Instead of the new interns consulting about any issue, they make assumptions to show their knowhow to the supervisors. In some instances, they are pressured to lie to patients. In cases where they do not have answers to reply to a patients query. For instance, a case where a patient needs a doctor to interpret laboratory results for him or her. If the doctor is not well acquainted with the medical information, he or she will give a false report to the patient.
Doctors do not take time to listen to their patient’s request. Instead of following the description of the patient’s illness, the doctor in charge often jumps into conclusion. McDougall and Sokol (69) highlights that such doctors enforce their plan to the patient. They dictate everything that the patient should do. Patients have a tendency of trusting the decisions made by doctors. As a result, patients will always follow all instructions given by a doctor.
It is truly unfortunate that at times institutions release medical practitioners that are not experienced. These young practitioners are put on the same tables with experienced doctors and are expected to perform. This is a significant challenge for these young doctors as they will not be able to perform with excellence as expected. The saddest situation comes up when a patient is lost when being handled by a new intern. There are instances when the doctors use procedures they are not well familiar. Patients are put through extremely painful procedures that may not be necessary. Hospital management should take time to take the doctors through training and only the qualified to do the complicated procedures.
Doctors also have to work for long hours. They usually have to follow a stiff schedule and duty roster that are released by their superiors. These timetables have to be followed to the latter. A doctor in charge cannot leave office before handing over to the next doctor. This is considerably challenging. This is because attending to patients is trying both physically and emotionally. Hence, the doctors should always have nurses to help them. Doctors that are unwell should not be allowed to work. This is because they may not make proper decisions.Health & Medicine Essay Example
Lorber and Moore (41) point out that there are patients that are choosy on the doctor they prefer. They are particular about being served by either a male doctor or female. Most patients say that they prefer to be served by female doctors than male doctors. They argue those female doctors are more sympathetic than male doctors are. It is further discussed that male doctors are not responsive. They do not practice a lot of patience when attending to patients. The patient is not given sufficient time to narrate their sickness. Instead, they rush through the process of treatment. On the other hand, a female doctor will take time to listen to the issue of the patient. Boulis and Jacobs (44) maintain that there needs to be more female doctors in the society.
Klugman and Dalinis (106) argue that medical practitioners are expected to work anywhere in the world when posted. Some of these practitioners are taken to areas where the inhabitants speak their native language. These doctors will encounter issues of the language barrier. Medical practitioners also need to ensure good ethical conduct. According to their ethics, they are to serve the patients well Phelps and Hassed (170). However, the challenge comes when they cannot communicate professionally to the patient. They often have to use interpreter and go between, who may not communicate the message, as it ought to be passed. Hoff (165) says that these scenarios have been experienced by doctors and nurses sent to refugee camps. Those sent on peacekeeping missions find themselves with this challenge. Most of such doctors and nurses give up on their work after the first term and look for other options. Others will refuse utterly to go to foreign countries to work because of fear of discrimination.
Clinical research has played a significant role in health and medicine. According to English et al. (23), there are challenges that medical practitioners face with clinical research. These include locating of money that will support the research project. The medical researchers have to get approval from relevant boards before they start the research. They also have to seek for participants in the research. Health & Medicine Essay Example These patients will take the trials during the research. They have to get authorization from related departments to conduct research. In addition, there is paper work that needs to be submitted to authorities about the research. These challenges have made many researchers get discouraged. Many have abandoned their research work during their initial trial. Most experienced researchers have also complained on the lack of funds, equipments, and shortage of supportive infrastructure. Research requires substantial record keeping. The collection of data must be done comprehensively. This data if not well written may give a wrong impression to the one using for research. However, most researchers are still struggling with data collection methods.
Previous scientific researchers have confirmed that it is difficult to get patients to participate in research programs. The recruitment process has been remarkably tedious for researchers. English et al (24) says that most patients may not confirm their participation in the study. Most of them would complain of the long distances that they have to travel to the research centers. The criteria of choosing the participants may also limit the number of patients. These factors include age, allergy to certain medication, and phase of disease being studied. These may make the patient recruitment process extremely challenging. Aungst and Institute of Medicine (2) suggest that the community should be educated and enlightened about the importance of research programs. This will make it easy for the medical researchers to recruit patients and involve the community in such projects. Researchers should also meet needs of the community. This will make the community trust and easily support research programs.
In conclusion, medical practitioners should improve on their code of conduct. There should be a high standard of discipline when handling patients. Young interns should not be discriminated. McDougall and Sokol (69) highlight that interns must be well trained. They should make sure that they are well informed about ethics of medical practice. Instead, new interns should be attached to experiences doctors to train them for at least 6 months. After which they can be released to practice what they have learnt. However, this may not be enough to warrant full integration of medical conduct. A practitioner must be willing to keep up with the trend of the practice. Thistledown and Spencer (70) maintain that male doctors need to work on their communication skills with patients. This will help a lot in maintaining a balance of gender in the health sector. As the medicine and health sector grows there need to be a significant growth in the ethic of the practitioners Sugarman (114).Health & Medicine Essay Example
The lack of elaborate research work has slowed down the invention of new drug and solutions to health problems. According to Jenks (4), cancer research has been slowed down a great deal. She highlights that many patients have complained about the long time it took for the research, to bear fruit. In the mean time, people are still suffering in diseases. It is therefore, suggested that the government supports medical practitioners. The government should work out a specific budget for research. This will supply to the demands that relate to, studies, and investigation carried out.Health & Medicine Essay Example