Health Professionals, Essay Example

When a patient first enters the clinic, the immediate response for the doctor or nurse on staff is to immediately treat the medical condition presented before them.  This, according to the training received by medical personnel, is inevitably the right response, at least over the short-term, in order to effectively treat medical conditions. As clinical professionals become more familiar with patients’ medical history, however, other explanations being to emerge regarding why certain individuals (continually) seek medical attention: the women who regularly shows up with bruises and broken bones due to domestic abuse; the middle aged man with a number of different psychosomatic conditions who is paralyzed by anxiety attacks and depression; the young girl with worsening asthma due to second-hand smoke at home.

The term “vulnerable population” is a comprehensive umbrella term that encompasses a number of different physical, social, and psychological environmental conditions.  At its core, however, individuals in vulnerable populations often times live in a threatening environment that either contributes or is a direct cause to the existing medical condition.  In this case, treating the medial condition will not necessarily help the patient achieve better health outcomes.

Indeed, it is one thing to recognize this background in many of one’s patients; it’s another to take action in order to ameliorate or even eliminate the actual cause.  For example, helping the women who suffers from domestic abuse to seek help may ultimately lead to more healing than any casting can give; educating a child’s parent on how their smoking habit is putting a young child at increased risk for death.  While it may be difficult to ultimately help many who come from a “vulnerable population”, sensitivity to their condition is the first step in providing more effective, personalized medical care.