Medical treatment, also known as medical care or medical attention, is the act of identifying and treating a health problem. It can include medications, therapy, surgery or other procedures, and sometimes a cure is found for a disease or injury.
In modern medicine, it is the practice of medicine by physicians and other healthcare professionals who are trained in diagnosing and treating patients’ illnesses or injuries. It involves a variety of techniques and procedures, many of which are still performed manually or with the aid of instruments.
The medical profession is a multidisciplinary field that is based on education and training. It includes medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists and allied health workers.
Primary medical care, or family medicine, is the first line of contact for non-emergency medical problems. This type of health care typically takes place in a general practitioner’s office or clinic. It is delivered by physicians or other trained health professionals whose areas of expertise range from general medical services to surgical services and specialized services such as physical therapy, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry, medical genetics and nursing.
Secondary medical care is the care provided by specialists in their offices or clinics or at local community hospitals for a patient referred by the general practitioner. These services are often specialized and may involve specialist facilities not available in a general practitioner’s practice, such as endoscopy units, medical imaging services, radiology, emergency departments and intensive care units.
Other forms of secondary medical care include outpatient clinics and hospital outpatient services that treat patients who do not require inpatient hospitalization or have a condition that requires complex treatments. This type of care is most commonly performed in the United States and Canada, where most hospitals have outpatient departments and a network of outpatient clinics.
Research and development in medicine is an important part of the healthcare process. It involves the collection of scientific information and the analysis and interpretation of that information to improve the diagnosis, management and treatment of diseases. It also involves the creation of new knowledge to benefit patient health and quality of life.
There are many different kinds of research in medicine, and the majority of it is conducted by physicians and other health professionals. Most medical research is published in journals or books, and most articles in journals are peer reviewed.
Several of the major publications in medical literature are textbooks, which have chapters or articles that describe medical topics and methods. There are also a number of medical journals, which publish original articles or review articles. These journals are a good source of medical information and may be searched using the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed database.
Medical manuals (medical guides) are textbooks that describe the diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of a wide range of medical conditions. They are usually accompanied by diagrams and photographs to help explain medical concepts.
Medical literature has been around for thousands of years, and the first known medical treatise was the Edwin Smith papyrus. Today, medical books and journals are produced primarily by academic and corporate publishers. There are also a number of online resources, such as Medscape and MDLinx, that aggregate digests of new articles from prominent medical journals.