Patients are people treating the person, not the problem

Abstract

A health-care practitioner is an individual who provides preventive, curative, promotional or rehabilitative health care services in a systematic manner to people, families or communities. Sadly, many clinicians could rather be called disease treaters as they are more concerned with handling the symptoms of a disorder (which also pays the bills), than on promoting or supporting the health of the individual. This applies to an even greater extent in Dentistry where the field of focus is already small, and it is tempting to talk of patients in terms of “the tooth” or “the case”. This paper presents a more holistic approach towards patient management during different stages of life from birth to adulthood.