The main role of a healthcare professional is to serve as an instrument in augmenting the medical condition of a patient. This process, also known as therapeutic intervention, could be delivered to a patient through a variety of approaches. As a healthcare professional, I spend time with patients and actively participate in giving proper care for them and this interaction is expecting to result in making the patient feel more comfortable and ultimately—heal.
The presence of a healthcare professional directly provides personal care to the patient through three different means. Physical presence allows the patient to know that he is not alone in his hospital room. On the other hand, my mind provides me ways in determining what kind of action I should provide at that particular moment. A third presence that I did not fully realize until lately is the presence of the soul in each one of us.
Thus this mind-body-soul approach thus allows a healthcare professional to fully provide the best possible healthcare to a patient. As a healthcare professional, I have learned most of the medical concepts in the classroom yet the personal interaction with patients are learned through direct contact with them during clinical rotations. My learning and comprehension of the actual condition of the patient is based on the responses that I receive and the actions that I observe in my patients.
I am also aware that any statements and behavior that I show to the patients will also influence their conditions and their course of healing. I realized that the quality of interaction I give to the patients during my clinical rotations also influence the mode of recuperation of the patient. It is thus not only a matter of administering medications and performing clinical procedures that facilitate in helping a patient get better, but also the kind of personal interrelationship that is provided to the patient.
There are times when I notice that I show different degrees of interaction with patients. There may be patients who I would be more interactive and share with them what I personally feel about their illness. As for other patients, I would only look into the disease itself and its corresponding management. I observed that those patients whom I have treated with a more personal touch have recuperated faster than those that I simply treated in a straightforward medical approach.
It seems that those patients, despite the severity of their illness, recuperate faster when personal interaction is coupled with medical treatment. Another personal experience that I have encountered during my clinical rotations is that patients accept the idea of death better when a healthcare professional consoles them with utmost sincerity. I have observed that the presence of a healthcare professional during this extremely difficult time has helped them to reach the last part of their journey.
The presence of a healthcare professional thus imparts a psychological effect on the patient, as well as on the immediate members of the family, that they are not alone in this ordeal. An emotional connection is also established between a healthcare professional and a patient and this serves as a major component in their healing, or else not in their path to crossing over. From these personal experiences, I have now learned that patient care not only involves diagnosing a disease, administering medications and conducting clinical assays.
Patient care also involves a personal relationship with a patient and providing them a sincere treatment of helping them out as they try to get better. I have learned that patient care involves the establishment of trust with and care for the patient. There are also cases when the physical disorder is influenced to become more severe because of the mental distress that is present in the minds of these patients. I have learned that when I care for my patients, it is better talk and listen to them and show that I sincerely hope that they would recuperate from their illness.