The road to health care

As physicians we are expected to be custodians of health of our
patients and how to be trustworthy of this exceptional privilege is indeed
a matter which has remained at the heart of any conscientious physician.

One of the important reasons in our failure to prevent harm to our
patient is an inherent limitation of scientific research. The scientific
research howsoever well meaning, has inherent limitations in
understandings the pathophysiolgic and therapeutic aspects of diseases.
At the best, they are only partial approximations of the truth on which we
fully rely! There are numerous instances where drugs once considered
essential were later on proved to be harmful and vice versa.

The experience teaches us to avoid exclusive reliance on scientific
information and to keep a balanced approach in the patient care by
combining science, art ,compassion and intuition. We must not lose our
knowledge in formation and our wisdom in knowledge.

The second reason of our failure to prevent patient harm is our
preoccupation with physical dimension of an individual's health. An
individual has qualitative and quantitative dimension, which determine his
sense of well being. Integral view of patient care which incorporates
both the dimensions can have significant effect in our attempts to
minimize harm to our patients . We must look at the patient as a “whole”
and rise ourselves to provide him the required care.

Competing interests:
None declared