Medical treatment is a term used to describe any action or activity undertaken by a health care professional to address illness and/or injury. This includes but is not limited to diagnostic procedures, medication, surgery and first aid. Depending on the condition, the health care professional may also recommend therapeutic procedures.
The practice of medicine and the healthcare sector in general, is a highly regulated field. It is a career that requires extensive education and training and usually leads to the award of a degree known as a doctorate (or equivalent) and membership of a professional body such as the Royal College of Physicians in the UK or the American Board of Internal Medicine.
In advanced industrial countries, most citizens have access to healthcare for free or at a relatively low cost through nationalised systems of universal health insurance. In other parts of the world, medical treatments are usually available through privately operated hospitals or clinics that charge for services rendered. Many of these private facilities are privately owned by individuals, companies or charities.
Many aspects of modern medical treatment are based on science and evidence-based practice. This is a major departure from previous practices, whereby the physician relied on hunches and intuition to decide what to do with a patient. A patient’s condition is assessed with diagnostic tests, which provide results to allow the medical practitioner to determine the appropriate course of treatment.
This may involve medicines, surgical interventions or other therapies such as physiotherapy and occupational therapy. It may be combined with counselling to help a patient deal with symptoms and the emotional impact of an illness or injury. The medical practitioner is often required to communicate with patients in an informed and understandable way, and to document his or her findings.
Medical treatment involves a high level of trust between the healthcare practitioner and the patient. This is particularly true for surgical procedures, where the surgeon must be able to perform operations without undue distress or harm to the patient. The patient must be fully aware of the risks and benefits of each procedure, and be able to make an informed choice.
Often, the choice of procedure will be guided by a patient’s own moral values and personal beliefs. Sometimes these values may conflict with the values of the medical profession, and the result can be a clinical ethics dilemma.
Some examples of therapeutic procedures include cataract removal, cosmetic surgery to improve appearance and reconstructive surgery to repair deformities caused by birth defects or accidents. In addition, there are a number of non-surgical therapeutic procedures such as endoscopy (using a slender tube to view inside the body), and colonoscopy (examining the large intestine). All these are designed to improve a person’s quality of life, but can be expensive or even life-threatening if not carried out properly. Some of these procedures are only available to those with a certain level of income, and this contributes to the social stratification of society that can be seen in access to healthcare facilities.