People visit a primary physician for various reasons. Some visit when they fall ill, some for follow-up on a chronic condition they have and some for routine health check-up. Ideally according to recommendation, an adult- that is a person more than 18 years of age should visit a physician once in every five years and after 40 years of age, they should visit once every one to three years. Purposes for regular health check-ups are many. It can be used for preventive purposes. Examples of preventive services that are provided by a good medical centre include vaccinations to prevent diseases like measles and rubella, identification of risk factors for diseases and health education in regard to them and screening for non-communicable diseases such as hypertension and diabetes.
Follow-up services include antenatal and postpartum care for mothers, new born clinic visits, control and management of diabetics and patients with heart disease and follow-up post a heart attack or a stroke. If a patient has a strong family history of a particular disease, then they are high risk of developing it, they too need to attend regular check-ups in order to be diagnosed early. A medical clinic Erskineville visit will include various segments. First, a clinical history will be taken by the patient and/or the accompanying person which includes any symptoms and the duration, past medical and surgical history, the drugs that the patient is on, any known allergies and a family history of disease. Then, a physical examination will be carried out as appropriate for the patient. By all this, the doctor will be able to do a risk assessment of the patient. If he finds appropriate, he may suggest some investigations starting from basic ones such as blood investigations, ECG, urine analysis and vision or hearing testing. There may be more specific procedures for certain patient groups such as breast examination and Pap smear for women, screening for sexually transmitted diseases in the high risk groups, prostate cancer screening for men or colon cancer screening for those with a strong family history.
A regular health check-up will not make you healthy, but it will teach you to take responsibility for your own health. It will also help you to build your relationship with your physician. Make sure to take all your medical records, immunization cards and doses and names of all the drugs you are taking when you go to meet your physician in order to make it an easy experience. Early diagnosis and proper follow-up will allow you to live a long and healthy life.