Medical (also known as medicine or medical science) is the branch of knowledge concerned with health care and disease. Medicine deals with the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of illness. The goal of medicine is to improve patients’ quality of life by alleviating suffering and preventing or curing disease.
The development of modern medicine has been driven by advances in knowledge of the body and the understanding of disease processes. Hippocrates, who is regarded as the father of modern medicine, introduced a rational approach to the practice of medicine. He formulated the Hippocratic Oath for physicians and laid down principles such as that symptoms should be examined and treated in their natural order, and that a disease is an entity with phases such as paroxysm, crisis, relapse, recovery and convalescence. Physicians such as Vesalius improved upon or disproved many of the theories handed down from earlier doctors.
In most developed countries, family physicians or general practitioners provide the first port of call for patients with non-emergency medical problems. Other medical specialties include obstetrics and gynecology, which is concerned with childbirth and female reproductive organs, and neurology, which deals with disorders of the nervous system.
Medical laboratories provide diagnostic services for physicians. They may specialize in one or more of the following: hematology, clinical chemistry, blood banking and microbiology. The interpretation of these tests is usually done by a physician or by a technician trained in the specific discipline. Diagnostic radiology includes x-rays, computed tomography and ultrasound as well as interventional radiology, where a medical professional can use specialized equipment to reach tissues inside the body for sampling or therapeutic procedures.