Over the years the fundamental role of physicians is to attend to patients medical needs as far as the health complications they are or likely to suffer. The other known responsibilities are centered around the patients this most constant aspect of the physician health care practices. However, in as much as the perspective of patients centeredness has not changed, there a significant number of aspects that have been introduced to physician medical practices. The roles of physicians have evolved into a multifaceted profession with specific job descriptions that describe the key roles specified within each of the medical physician practices. This article will elaborately define the evolution in the physician practices, the added responsibilities within the health professional careers, the constant responsibilities that have not changed in the course of time, as well as the dropped responsibilities that have been assigned to other health practitioners.
Over the last ten years, there has been a significant change in the medical industry. One of the main changes is attributed to the ever changing trends of technology. Medical equipment has evolved and become more effective and efficient in handling medical procedures and diagnosis. It is these changes that have contributed significant role additions to ideal physicians in health care practice today (Newton, 2013, p. 2803). One of the added responsibilities is the administrative roles. Physicians that are employed on a permanent basis by a hospital is likely to have permanent responsibilities besides medical practices. Often they are made part of the hospital management and administration staffs. With time they evolve into the corporate aspect of the hospital as an institution. Additionally, specialized physicians such as surgeons, have forums and associations that are unions geared to build their professionalism and advancement within the fields of practice, administrative responsibilities exist within these associations, and individual physicians are assigned roles to aid in the effectiveness of these practices (Flores, 2013, p. 27). This is an addition to the list of responsibilities a hospital assigns; this is partly because health care centers fully embrace the existence of the associations as core facets of the hospital.
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The management role of physicians within the healthcare practice does not entirely exist within the specific medical practice, other forms of medical practices such as private practices, and small-scale practices as well, exhibit some management practice as an added role. Especially in the individual acute health care practices, that are essentially based on small and institutionalized healthcare clinics, the physicians own the clinics. As a result, they are equally managers just as they are medical practitioners. This basically to ensure the meets all the legal requirements as well as make enough profits to enable it to remain operational over time. Another extra role that can be closely associated with the administrative role is the recruitment and training role. To ensure that the health clinic gets the best of the staffs, quality staffing practice that involves physicians who practice within the institution, they understand the needs of the institutions (Hawkins, 2013, p. 8). Therefore, they contribute significantly to the development the human capital necessary for the efficient running of the clinics. Hence, another contemporary role for the physicians today.
Also, technology has reduced the use of paper to document associated medical activities. It has become a core responsibility of doctors to document all the medical practices that are associated with a diagnosis or medication administered. Health systems are such that physicians are required to log their patient related activities into the system. This includes medical histories, medications, specialized practices and medical doctor recommendations. The system generates a paper documentation detailing the health care practice administered to the patient. Additionally, physicians are expected to train on how to manage and operate specialized equipment that is of relevance to their fields of specializations, for instance, a surgeon is expected to learn how to use all the tech related equipment that exist on the operating table. Therefore, it is among the added responsibilities to log the system use and resultant documentations generated; this is to ensure the attribution of the specifics to the individual physician that oversee the use. This direct interaction with information systems is among the added physician added responsibilities.
However, other adaptive roles have not changed over time. Every employee with multiple skill sets always has a head start over their counterpart employees with individual skill sets. It has become a trend that physicians develop or acquire more than an area of specialization. One of the areas of specialization becomes a primary role according to job descriptions and the much-needed skill set specialty (Caricati, 2014, p. 990). The other is of specialization becomes another responsibility that the physician can take over, at any time, therefore, becomes one of the specified roles in the job description. Most of the contemporary job descriptions may be peculiar to the much-needed skills sets. However, there is always a clause that often refers to any other unspecialized roles, including them as some of the secondary responsibilities of the physicians (Caricati, 2014, p. 991).
Another aspect of the evolvement of the physician responsibilities can be viewed from the direction of dropped roles. Some key roles were taken care of by a doctor but have been rechanneled to the nurses or physician assistants. For example, documentation handling, physicians no longer have a direct contact with documentation of patients medical practices, the role has been tricked down to the nurses (Newton, 2013, p. 2805). Also, the monitoring of patients response to a drug or medication administered is some of the follow-up activities that have been assigned to the nurses. Physicians responsibilities have been limited to interaction with the patient, to extract patient medical history that may be of significance to the current illness, and then administering a relevant diagnosis and appropriate preventive measure. All the other responsibilities either directly or indirectly contribute to this primary responsibility.
References
Caricati, L. S. (2014). Work climate, work values and professional commitment as predictors of job satisfaction in nurses. Journal of nursing management, 22(8) , 984-994.
Flores, K. &. (2013). Minority representation in healthcare: Increasing the number of professionals through focused recruitment. Hospital topics, 91(2) , 25-36.
Hawkins, S. S. (2013). Creating a culture of performance excellence at Henry Ford Health System. Global Business and Organizational Excellence, 32(2) , 6-22.
Newton, C. T. (2013). Flexibility in change practices and job outcomes for nurses: exploring the role of subjective fit. Journal of advanced nursing, 69(12) , 2800-2811.
