Summary :
The word 'patient' is derived from the Latin patiens, meaning sufferance or forbearance. The overall purpose of medical practice is to relieve suffering. In order to achieve this purpose, it is important to make a diagnosis, to know how to approach treatment, and to design an appropriate scheme of management for each patient. It is therefore essential to understand each person as fully as possible, whatever their social class or ethnic and cultural background. The thorough doctor will not only elucidate the problems posed by disease, but also apply his or her skill to advise patients and families how to manage these problems. The distinction between cure of disease and relief of symptoms remains as valid today as in the past. No patient should leave a medical consultation feeling that nothing can be done to help them, even when the disease is incurable. Body_ID: P001001 Clinical methods - the skills doctors use to achieve this aim of excellence in clinical practice - are acquired during a lifetime of medical work. Indeed, they evolve and change as new techniques and concepts arise, and as the doctor develops in experience and maturity. Clinical methods are acquired by a combination of study and experience, and there is always something new to learn. Body_ID: P001002 The initial aims of any first consultation are to understand the patient's own perception of their problem and to start or complete the process of diagnosis. This double aim requires a knowledge of disease and its patterns of presentation, together with an ability to interpret a patient's symptoms and signs. Appropriate skills are needed to elicit the symptoms from the patient's description and conversation, and the signs by observation and physical examination. Difficulties posed by assessing the patients themselves, or by the variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds found in modern life, must be accepted and factored into the interpretation of the data acquired during the consultation. This requires not only experience and considerable knowledge of people in general, but also the skill and interest in people to strike up a relationship with a range of very different individuals

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