Everyone deserves proper healthcare and medical benefit. Living in a democratic country, the prime duty of the state is to give these benefits to its citizens. It is a basic right of everyone, even if there are differences in social and economic status. Whether a person is poor and uneducated, it is the government’s responsibility to provide his medicines and medical attention. In an effort to better serve its citizens, different efforts are utilized to do this. One of the modern ways of reaching patients is through telemedicine.
Telemedicine is a new approach in treating patients in this modern age. This new method is initially introduced as a way to take care of prisoners at the same time safeguard the safety of doctors or medical practitioners. A television screen is used as a communication device for between the doctor and the patient. In some way, it helps in interacting and identifying the probable medical need of the patient. Although for some doctors, physical presence is important because they need to smell and touch their patients. Some doctors need to find clues on a patient’s physical appearance in order to draw some diagnosis. In essence, doctors can do the same thing during checkups aside from touching and smelling the patients. It also proves to be convenient and more accessible (Americanownews.com, 2012). But for psychiatrists, it offers comfort and ease for the patient. And with this, the government has already realized the advantages of telemedicine in reaching far away rural areas. Patients who undergo psychiatric sessions often prefer interacting with someone they can see only over a small screen television instead of being physically there. They become more comfortable in confiding their state and experiences. For trauma patients, they would feel better and at ease not having someone to be physically there during the patient-doctor interaction. For paranoia-suffering patients, the camera is panned on all corners of the room to make sure that nobody is there to listen to their talk. In terms of privacy and confidentiality, session should never be recorded; it might be hard to do since patient would not be able to know whether they are being recorded or not. It is then up to the professionalism of the psychiatrist to uphold the trust given to her. Just like medical documents, the patient involved has the only access to that information, aside from the prescribing doctor. Also, regular inspection of the psychiatrist’s office must be done in order to check if there is any recording of the session. White noise machine is also used during the session, where it is placed outside the office to ensure no one can hear the on-going talk. In some extent, this addresses the issue of privacy for the patients.
Psychiatric treatment is beneficial for any patients, and it must be properly provided by the state, as well. In this modern time, people should have access to medical professionals who can give them proper education and treatment. As modern medical instruments progress, so is the advancement of medical consultation methods. In such time, telemedicine could be the norm and might be more popular as live consultation. Although privacy issues need to be regulated by government, it is the responsibility of medical personnel to maintain patient confidentiality at all times.
Reference
Americanownews.com. (2012). Telemedicine may replace doctor's visits. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.americanownews.com/story/19033555/telemedicine+ [Accessed: 5 Apr 2014].
