Pain Management is a medical approach that draws on disciplines in science and alternative healing to study the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of pain. For painful spine and musculoskeletal disorders, pain management is employed as an aggressive conservative (nonsurgical) care program that helps to identify the source of neck and back pain and rehabilitate the patient as an alternative or follow-up to surgery. A physician who is practicing pain medicine or pain management is usually an anesthesiologist who has been certified or trained on the relief and/or management of pain. A physiatrist may also specialize in pain medicine. Pain management programs can employ massage therapy, analgesic medications, physical therapy, and epidural steroid injections, among others to treat back pain.
Family medicine is the medical specialty which provides continuing, comprehensive health care for the individual and family. It is a specialty in breadth that integrates the biological, clinical and behavioral sciences. The scope of family medicine encompasses all ages, all genders, each organ system and every disease entity.
Practice of nursing means the systematic application of substantial specialized knowledge and skill, derived from the biological, physical, and behavioral sciences, to the care, treatment, counsel, and health teaching of individuals who are experiencing changes in the normal health processes or who require assistance in the maintenance of health and the prevention or management of illness, injury, or disability.
A branch of medicine that specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. It includes medical oncology (the use of chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and other drugs to treat cancer), radiation oncology (the use of radiation therapy to treat cancer), and surgical oncology (the use of surgery and other procedures to treat cancer).
Emergency medicine is the medical speciality concerned with the care of illnesses or injuries requiring immediate medical attention. Emergency physicians (often called “ER doctors” in the United States) continuously learn to care for unscheduled and undifferentiated patients of all ages. As first-line providers, in coordination with Emergency Medical Services, they are primarily responsible for initiating resuscitation and stabilization and performing the initial investigations and interventions necessary to diagnose and treat illnesses or injuries in the acute phase. Emergency physicians generally practise in hospital emergency departments, pre-hospital settings via emergency medical services, and intensive care units. Still, they may also work in primary care settings such as urgent care clinics. Sub-specializations of emergency medicine include; disaster medicine, medical toxicology, point-of-care ultrasonography, critical care medicine, emergency medical services, hyperbaric medicine, sports medicine, palliative care, or aerospace medicine.
Critical care (also known as Intensive Care) is the multiprofessional healthcare specialty that cares for patients with acute, life-threatening illness or injury. Critical care can be provided wherever life is threatened - at the scene of an accident, in an ambulance, in a hospital emergency room, or in the operating room. Most critical care today, however, is delivered in highly specialized intensive care units (ICU). Various terminologies like Critical Care Unit (CCU), Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU), Coronary Care Unit (CCU) may be used to describe such services in a hospital.
A type of disease that affects the heart or blood vessels. The risk of certain cardiovascular diseases may be increased by smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, and obesity. The most common cardiovascular disease is coronary artery disease (narrow or blocked coronary arteries), which can lead to chest pain, heart attacks, or stroke. Other cardiovascular diseases include congestive heart failure, heart rhythm problems, congenital heart disease (heart disease at birth), and endocarditis (inflamed inner layer of the heart). Also called heart disease.
Geriatrics, or geriatric medicine, is a specialty of medicine that focuses on the health care of the elderly. Doctors who practice geriatrics are called geriatricians or geriatric physicians. They work to improve and maintain the health of elderly people by treating and preventing diseases such as dementia, osteoporosis, and heart disease. Geriatrics is different from gerontology, which is the study of the aging process, such as the biological changes that take place in cells.
Infectious diseases are caused by pathogenic microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses, parasites or fungi. These diseases can spread from the environment or from one person to another resulting in illness in our communities.
Nuclear medicine is a specialized area of radiology that uses very small amounts of radioactive materials, or radiopharmaceuticals, to examine organ function and structure. Nuclear medicine imaging is a combination of many different disciplines. These include chemistry, physics, mathematics, computer technology, and medicine. This branch of radiology is often used to help diagnose and treat abnormalities very early in the progression of a disease, such as thyroid cancer. Because X-rays pass through soft tissue, such as intestines, muscles, and blood vessels, these tissues are difficult to visualize on a standard X-ray, unless a contrast agent is used. This allows the tissue to be seen more clearly. Nuclear imaging enables visualization of organ and tissue structure as well as function. The extent to which a radiopharmaceutical is absorbed, or "taken up," by a particular organ or tissue may indicate the level of function of the organ or tissue being studied. Thus, diagnostic X-rays are used primarily to study anatomy. Nuclear imaging is used to study organ and tissue function.
The specialty of internal medicine covers a wide range of conditions affecting the internal organs of the body - the heart, the lungs, the liver and gastro-intestinal tract, the kidneys and urinary tract, the brain, spinal column, nerves, muscles and joints. Although some diseases specifically affect individual organs, the majority of common diseases - arteriosclerosis, diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer may affect many internal organs of the body. The internist must then be trained to recognise and manage a broad range of diseases and, with the aging population, many patients with chronic and multiple disorders.
A general practitioner (GP) is a physician who treats acute and chronic illnesses and provides preventive care and health education to patients of all ages. Their duties are not confined to specific fields of medicine, and they have particular skills in treating people with multiple health issues. They are trained to treat patients to levels of complexity that vary between countries.
Radiology, also called diagnostic imaging, is a series of different tests that take pictures or images of various parts of the body. Many of these tests are unique in that they allow doctors to see inside the body. A number of different imaging exams can be used to provide this view, including X-ray, MRI, ultrasound, CT scan and PET scan. Radiologists interpret a broad spectrum of diagnostic tests including x-rays, ultrasound, bone mineral densitometry, fluoroscopy, mammography, nuclear medicine, CT and MRI.