The Transformation of Physician Practices and the Reasons That Led to Change

Introduction

A physician is a medical practitioner who is concerned with promoting, upholding, or reestablishing health through the study, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, injury and other bodily and mental injuries. Nowadays the practice of medicine is not as dull as it was before, as it is now coupled with a lot of changes which affect the physician role either positively or negatively.

Technology is one, if not the most, notable change in the field of medicine. Technological inventions such as machines which help in treatment of diseases, thus making the physician`s work much easier. There has also been the invention of tube fertilization whereby a fertilized egg can be implanted in a surrogate mother, if one is not in a position to hold and carry the baby due to some exposed risks or inability. The introduction of electronic health keeping of records, which allows effective supervision of all the activities being carried out in the hospital, has also been among the prominent reasons of how medical practitioners work nowadays. This has been achieved due to the necessity and curiosity of the human being to cure and control diseases like cancer, which requires specialized machines.

Cultural changes whereby people have now accepted to visit hospitals frequently even without any illness, just for check-ups and to be advised on how to live a healthy life for instance, good nutrition, dieting and exercise. Ethics and morality have also changed the medical field and how physicians work in that nowadays, with the introduction of a code of ethics which regulate and control their behaviors, and which they are strictly required to follow, failure to which will attract a heavy sanction on them (Frellick, 2015).

Today, treatment has become patient-centered as opposed to that of two decades ago. Doctors are supposed to diagnose a patient and tell him/her the kind of disease he has, and proceed to recommend to him the appropriate type of treatment that can best address his illness. Patients now have autonomous rights to choose which kind of treatment they want to subscribe to.

There have also been reforms in education which includes expanding the settings for training of health professionals. This has led to disposal of competent and highly qualified physicians who are equal to the task (Okie, 2012).

It is true to say that change is inevitable and hence it is the duty of each and everyone of us to ensure that the changes only move us in the right direction and not otherwise, just as it is in other fields.