Medical treatment is a set of activities or techniques that health care professionals use to heal or improve the condition of people who are sick or injured. Treatment can include medicine, therapy, surgery or other approaches. Sometimes, treating a disease can be a cure, but other times treatment may control or relieve symptoms without curing the disease. Health care is an important part of the economy, and there are many jobs in it. Most modern economies have universal health coverage, so people can receive medical treatment when needed.
Modern medical treatment relies on a team of trained health professionals who work together to deliver care. Nurses, doctors, physician assistants, physiotherapists, psychologists, pharmacists and laboratory scientists are all part of the medical profession.
The earliest health care workers were trained in what is now called a medical school, though many other professionals have been added to the health care team. Some of these specialties include emergency medicine, which deals with injuries or illness that require immediate attention, such as an accident. Another field is pediatrics, which treats children.
Other fields are internal medicine, which treats adults, and public health. The latter is concerned with threats to a whole community, and it uses information about the risk factors of illnesses in the population to inform public policy.
Medical treatments are used to treat a patient’s symptoms, to prevent a disease from developing (called prophylaxis), and to support a patient’s health after a serious illness. A common example is the administration of antibiotics to treat an infection. Another is the transition from intravenous to oral antibiotics as the infection is brought under control, a process known as tapering therapy.
It is possible to get more information about medical treatments than ever before, thanks to the Internet. However, it’s important to know what is appropriate for your own health situation. Health information websites can often offer information about general conditions, but only health professionals can provide you with health information that relates to your specific illness or injury.
Taking the time to learn about your options, and weigh those options along with their risks and benefits, can empower you in making decisions about medical treatment. This is also called shared decision making, and it’s an essential component of good health care.
It’s helpful to keep in mind that a treatment might seem promising because it worked for patients in a fair test such as a randomized trial. But those patients likely had a very similar illness or injury to yours, and it is often impossible to predict how you will respond to a particular treatment. This is why it’s important to talk to your doctor about what the evidence really tells us about your individual case.