Health is personal- It’s by far the most sacred lifetime asset of a person’s despite knowing it will come into an end, yet thrives to cherish it through what life is willing to put up. Simultaneously every individual cares to enjoy, try new options available, interact and experiment. Walk the roads that are not necessarily safe and healthy. Sure life seems as if we are against a double-edged sword, doomed to stay healthy and doomed giving up unhealthy habits. Individuals are in need of help make the right choice, as they are not universally experts in every aspect of life science can offer. Some shortcut by putting the burden on physicians and health professionals, some takes contravene by ignoring expert opinion, others build a coalition with their physician for guidance. Such variations of attitude open a new controversial subject.
Who handles a person’s health?! And what is the best way to support health?!
Although no perfect definition, still the ideal health is the balance of social, physical and psychological Starr of human body and soul in the context, no one will live everlastingly in our lifetime. To achieve, one must define self, health, and care by filling in the gaps impossible to top up. Once successful defining then set goal and strides through, as in thriving. Ultimately, the whole process falls under the umbrella of “Healthcare”.
There’s no doubt in my mind any person with a sound mind would contest to, as- we all call for a better life, whereas betterment requires a healthy living. Yet, we all accord to differ on grounds to as what pertains to the obligation we as patients have towards our common missions. On that premise, it would be crucial to sporadically define what we imply by health, care, medicine, and healthcare. This favor meets the expectations from the progress we lay down in science, technology, and social mindset. For example, a century ago medical care or self-care would be considered a job of the physician where patients would be the followers of instruction for that era that may have sufficed well to live up to the healthcare of public. But, current millennial are more independent and self-reliant to an extent where some may be perceived as overly technological reliant. Hence, the definition of medical, self and health care may be subject to variance as we navigate between generation’s baby boomers and Generation Y or the millennial. The battle of definitions is the ignition point of the disagreements in the healthcare delivery system. So, it would be fair to gaze back into some historical definitions and note the transition.
Through my due diligence search for possible online definitions, it did not take long for me to recognize that according to Wikipedia medical upkeep is equaled to healthcare. The site defines the latter two as “the maintenance or improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health professionals in allied health fields”
Let’s run down through definitions
Self-Care is not medical terminology. It’s a managed care driven deed referring to the series of events or systematically defined protocols that an individual takes part in after the oncoming of physical or mental health symptoms. Often times, companies and managed care organizations send resources for their employees/members to make wiser decisions about how to go about treating their symptoms without making in-person office visits. In other sentience, Self-care today is referred to a controlled, thus limited protocol-driven medical care. It pertains to any necessary human regulatory affair under individual control, deliberate and self-initiated
Medicine, in contrast, is the science or practice of diagnosing, treating, and prevention of disease in technical use often taken to omit surgery.
Health by definition is the state of physical, mental and social well-being in which disease and infirmity are absent. To be healthy a person must use all the valid science and effective technology to continually apply to that sacred mission. Three or even two decades ago due to limited access to medical information and technologies; the major source of healing was the doctor’s office. The 19th-century preventative health was the start of a predefined protocol to educate citizens about disease prevention pertaining to infectious disease. It became the common belief, is primarily the government’s responsibility to enforce preventive care which would otherwise be considered self-care today by mandating vaccinations and better sanitary practices. The maintainability of health was still lagging because it requires structuring information, media reach out and education which was highly technology-dependent, thus limited. Today; with the advances in information technology, social media, the paradox of unrefined mountainous information, people research and read about their problems and symptoms. Perhaps is too much to stay out of harmful information along with legitimately valid ones.
The concept of self-care and its accompanied controversy gets a renaissance.
Old days self-care would have been considered no more than washing hands and brushing teeth, but today is considered a little short of self-prescription of medication and refined herbal remedies than conceivable before, so to a lesser extent reliance on physicians. A century ago healthcare was nothing but a medical care with un-subdivided take-home instructions. Thus, self-care was the controlled limited medical care of the self. Today self-care has lesser restraint and broader limits and is expanding with the technological horizon. There appears a struggle between patient, physician, technology and government roles. Each is yet to find a dedicated space within the healthcare vacuum.
Self-care and medical care
Medical care, self-care is overlapping phenomena covered under the healthcare umbrella. Their convergence is perpetually growing and their proportionality is changing by following the lead of social requirements and traction. Besides, the way of making self-care efficient and safe is the nidus of our discourse.
Prevention is the best medicine!
One can’t lend oneself medical science without knowing what is healthy living. In today’s one-size-fits-all corporate population health model medicine is becoming more and more profiled and fragmented, even though the system is constantly struggling to mend the broken-down system by creating another managed care concept the central playing primary care discipline to reunify different disciplines by virtually placing the burden on general practice physicians. Thus, Comparative difference and over overlap between self-care and medical care by the virtue of medicine being a multifaceted science is utterly a false statement.
Utilitarian attitude won’t help today’s self-care mental attitude
In a scheme of Medical care with utilitarian approach where the user is good and that the determining consideration of right conduct should be the usefulness of its consequences is no longer applicable in today’s societal mindset, plainly because it fails to efficiently incorporate what is being referred to as self-care module. To integrate the latter, physicians must accommodate a collaborative or pragmatic overture that places importance on patient autonomy and respects their personal lifestyles. The personal position is the driver of the quality of care, both from the physician’s perspective and the patients. The question we need to ask ourselves-
Do we want to be cared for, or we wish to care for ourselves, or we need to be helped replete in the gap?
Utilitarian attitude is evidently the one where a person would be inclined to give up control to the physician or healthcare expert.
Millennial is at the other end of the spectrum. They come along more self-driven and technologically savvy. They have lost their faith in healthcare; they have made up their minds on what they need from their doctor before their clinic visit. The young generation is more adapting to corporate-driven healthcare but simultaneously make mistakes. Despite this caveat, adverse effects have been reported, including muscle cramps, hair loss, joint pain, liver disease, and allergic reactions, with 29% of the adverse effects resulting in hospitalization, and 20% in serious injuries or illnesses.
Historically governments have occupied the driver’s seat with regard to self-care and health preventions, but the landscape is changing headed opposite to the realism of medical practice is that it’s not of necessity transitioning to a legitimate personalized care but to a pseudo-personalized corporate medicine where patients are encouraged to stay home, pursue a set of protocols that are best for the majority of people without safeguards against false information flooding the internet.
Physician empowerment is the Virtue
Physicians need to engage and take on preventive role within the scope of their practice domain. To be safeguarded, Patients need to discuss their online findings with their physician. Patients must take control of their health under the supervision of their treating doctors. Helping self-care is not merely a primary care province. It the obligation of all medical professionals from all skill sets and levels. For instance, Arthritis prevention must be as much of the responsibility of physicians with orthopedic skills as diabetic prevention for an endocrinologist. Mistakenly, all preventive care is bundled under primary care responsibility.
Self-care is Collaborative care
Collaborative care is the most reliable title for the self-care misnomer. Personalized skill set level care is collaborative care between patient and physician that would better delineate what is being conveyed to the public as “self-care” cannot be apart from medical care merely because it requires constant physician intervention and intellectual counsel.
Regretfully, the collaborative care we witness today is primarily between patient and technical driven protocols. Due to their technocratic inclination Millennial are on the path of trusting technology out of control of medical experts over the healthcare experts themselves.
Patient empowerment is must
Patients Taking medical care in their own hand is a must but without physician guidance is wrong.
Millennial are obsessed with self-care. As a random publication states “Although digital media offers new opportunities to discuss health disparities and increase health literacy among urban community college students, they must have the opportunity to process eHealth information at a deeper level and taught how to efficaciously check health information found on the Web”
If patients solely follow the system and allow themselves to be directed, then corporate care and authoritarian government care would inevitably take over. Indeed, self-care, medical care as is described under the common nomenclature both apply to the collaborative source of the clinical process that takes place within the limits of doctor-patient bond, as one can’t be without the other.
Personalized care is the answer!
Personalized care is collaborative care. Healthcare consists of axis medical care, personal care, public health all built around physicians and patients to enhance that we need empower individuals; individuals are patients and physicians whom each independently recognize and take control of their Space while taking advantage of the technology, social media, and information without the risk of biased third-party influence.
