1. Broad Questions on Medicine Flashcards
What could be the implications of medical advancement on medical training?
(1) Greater efficiency
(2) Increased knowledge of pathophysiology
(3) Increased training time
(4) Super specialisation
(1) GREATER EFFICIENCY: tasks such as analysing blood samples was previously administered by doctors, but are now done by pathologists. This enables doctors to deal with patients in the meantime, setting up an efficient line of communication amongst healthcare professions
(2) GREATER KNOWLEDGE OF PATHOPHYSIOLOGY: medical advancement has led to better understanding of the mechanisms and chemistry of the human body, enabling good simulation tools to be built, making training easier.
(3) INCREASED TRAINING TIME: according to Good Clinical Governance, doctors must make decisions compliant with the latest evidence; this means they need to be up to date with a constantly growing volume of information. To avoid increasing the time required to train doctors, new, more efficient training strategies must be devised
(4) Super specialisation: efficient training methods may produce doctors that are super specialists in a particular niche: this means they may be able to deal with more complex conditions in a niche post, but on the other hand, may not be knowledgeable on more generalised Medicine to staff on calls, nights and weekend shifts that require more in breadth than in depth skills and training.
How does Medicine now compare with 100 years ago?
(1) Shift from paternalistic decision-making to partnership decision-making
(2) Increased interrelation of Law and Medicine
(3) Composition and role of doctors
(4) Increased formalisation and regulation of healthcare institutions
(5) Shift from curative to preventative culture
What is holistic Medicine?
- Holistic Medicine is the recognition that disease and illness cannot be treated solely as a scientific matter when prescribing and treating patients, but is interrelated with psychological, social and financial needs.
- How would this treatment interfere with a patient’s job, will it impair his social life, what are the knock on financial implications, should any modifications be made to help the patient cope effectively
An effective doctor should therefore not just consider the treatment that is likely to best cure the patient’s symptoms, but the best cure within the context of the patient’s personal background.
•Captured by a multidisciplinary approach to patient care ie. can the patient be diverted to other healthcare professions that can be attentive to more specific needs e.g. psychologist, counsellor, social worker
In my personal statement, I mentioned a quote by a doctor who saw Medicine as recognizing the “violence, poverty, lack of education and government policies all come down with great vengeance on the body.” Healthcare is not just about treating the illness, but involving professionals to deal with wider social issues, like child abuse, homelessness etc.
Why is research important to Medicine
Research can take several forms for different purposes: lab based (e.g. pathology to gain a better insight into the mechanisms at play in alternative therapies) patient-based (research into rare disease of which there are about 7000), literature based (different doctors’ perspectives on different treatments)
The reason research is important can be boiled down to: improving patient care.
(1) Good Clinical Practice: requires that doctors make decisions compliant with the latest evidence, so as to create the most optimal management plans for patients. Research facilitates this, through the discovery of new techniques, technologies and drugs that can better patient care
(2) Evidence-Based Medicine: so that clinical decisions can be made that are objective, based on sound evidence and are therefore validated by science rather than opinion.
