Some people today prefer to get advice for medical problems and do not want to visit a doctor. Why is this? Is this a positive or a negative development?
Reasons
why people stay away from visiting medical practitioners
- Lack of trust: the diagnostic methods being used today and number of erroneous assessments coming to light
- Many also feel that doctors today are just like other professionals - inclined to make money
-
The time spent in waiting to meet a doctor is immensely increasing and people
not want that
-
Online resources available today are rich enough to give a detailed information
about symptoms, about ways to treat the ailments and which tests to undergo
Positive development
- People
are now able to keep a check on their health instead of waiting for a doctor to
decide their condition
- They
can take precautions in advance and act accordingly and also decide what course
to follow
Negative development
- People are jeopardizing
their health and life: diagnosing an ailment just on the basis of certain
common clues can be lethal: doctors carry exposure and expertise to judge the
intensity and suitability of medicine
- This is also creating
pessimism in society and making people apprehensive
A strange propensity is being observed among many people who are inclined to seek suggestions on their medical conditions and forgoing paying a visit to a qualified practitioner. This can be attributed to several causes, it can be regarded as favourable and unfavourable evolution depending on the perspective of the observer.
This trend is driven by availability of sumptuous information online in the form of various verified websites where thousands of experts in medicine from diverse corners of the world share their experiences and knowhow of symptoms, evolution, testing and dispensing medicines to treat almost every known disease, disorder and ailment. Besides this, the inputs available can also inform individuals of the severity of their medical condition. Therefore, there are several who instead of squandering their time waiting for their appointment, inform themselves about their problem more conveniently.
This has been hailed by several commentators as a step in the right direction since now those ailing can enlighten themselves about their condition and also assess the seriousness of their problem, allowing them opportunity to decide upon the next course of action, besides, taking precautions to evade any undesirable consequences.
However, a prominent lobby of medical experts is quite concerned about this newly evolving propensity: this is making people susceptible to severe outcomes that could also jeopardise health, as well as life. Qualified and seasoned medical professionals are the only ones who can judge the nature of disease accurately, by evaluating commonly occurring symptoms and determining their relevance, and afford a suitable intervention, whereas the probability of erroneous assessment by untrained laymen is quite high.
Overall, despite this phenomenon becoming more and more ubiquitous and fetching certain benefits, I feel this is an undesirable development and is bound to result in life threatening situations.
