Introduction
Primary prevention entails the precautionary measures undertaken on diseases and conditions before their onset instead of curing them when they are already in the body with the aim of promoting health (Gullotta & Bloom, 2003). This can be achieved through several methods such as ensuring safety measures are taken in all activities to prevent accidents and injuries that otherwise would have been avoided, educating the society the uses of condoms so as to get rid of diseases that are transmitted sexually, ensuring food and water hygiene, educating people on health behaviors that can enhance disease resistance mechanisms, vaccination against diseases where possible, avoiding situations that may affect the health of an individual for example avoiding drug intake, encouraging healthy eating habits, the government should also take measures that reduce pollution of air through formulation of policies that discourage air pollution and enacting them, and undertaking regular medical examinations.
Primary Prevention in the Nursing Profession
Lately, there has been a rise in formation of organization that basically deals with the primary prevention. Those bodies include Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH) among others. Their aim is to research on health issues affecting the communities, updating ways of dealing with some long term diseases such as cancer and heart diseases. They also go around the society educating the public on primary prevention measures through road shows, designing of special program and other forms of media. They also deal with the secondary prevention and the tertiary prevention.
“One category deals with prevention measures undertaken to protect diseases that do cause disability by ensuring following one all vaccinations, diet and body hygiene and prevention against unnecessary accidents through enacting of government policies that governs safety conditions in the country such as work areas and the environment as a whole” (Cohen, Chavez & Chehimi, 2007). The second category deals with the management of infectious diseases by ensuring they make changes in the environment to get rid of disease causing microorganisms. They also deal with the management of chronic diseases which is even worse than the infectious diseases because they require changing some health behaviors. Primary Prevention in the Nursing Profession.
Primary Prevention in Nursing and Medical Surgery
The nursing field of medical-surgery and acute care units specialize in giving care to adult patients before the surgical process and even after. They also deal with the management of diseases that require pharmaceutical management. The nurses in this field attend to the patients who need top quality specialized care. Most of these practices involve the primary prevention.
Most of the patients who undergo surgical processes often suffer from stress before and after the process. This is because they have the fear of death or may be uncertain of the outcome of the surgical process. It is therefore the role of the nurses in the field to help them understand why they have to undergo the process, and also assure them of the recovery process. They do this through counseling in order to prepare them psychologically as this also helps speed their healing process. There is need for patients to understand the procedure and the effects of the process.
The medical surgery is subdivided into various subspecialties which includes trauma resuscitation, transplant surgery which deals with the transplanting of the various body organs such as the kidneys, eyes, heart among others, the general surgery, cardiovascular which deals with the issues of the heart, plastic surgery which deals with complex laceration issues, orthopedic which deals with the skeletal issues in a human body and the neurosurgery which deals with issues of the brain, spinal disorders and movement disorders among others.
The departments are generally concerned with the provision of special care depending on the nature of the patients problems for the patients either the inpatient or the outpatients. They achieve this through proper diagnosis and treatment and also proper guiding and counseling the patients. In the transplant department they commit themselves to offer consultancy on programs based on transplantation services.
Dealing with diseases that requires pharmaceutical management entails acting on diseases such as diabetes whereby they act as advisers to the patients on issues pertaining diet, bodily exercises, personal management and also act on emergency attacks. They also attend to patients suffering from heart issues by serving those who suffer from common attacks, they give them the necessary drugs and advise them on the management processes the patients are required to undertake (Cohen, Chavez & Chehimi, 2007).
During the twentieth century, there has been great improvement on the technology which has enabled the healthcare providers to improve on the management of the patients’ health. There is more usage of machines hence more efficiency although the patients lack the human attachment of a caregiver (Gullotta & Bloom, 2003). There are also legal controls that have been put in place to ensure that doctors do not intentionally cause harm or even neglect their patients. They do this by ensuring that those who are found guilty of the crime face charges and are answerable to the civil.
The medical surgery nurses must have received proper education in a medical school to ensure that only the qualified staff attends to the critical cases. For an individual to qualify to the position they need to have studied in the medical school for five to seven years which is also followed by a postgraduate degree in the training for the relevant field or the department. This ensures proper mastering of content, gaining the relevant knowledge and skills and also experience in handling of sensitive health cases especially in terminal illnesses.
There are workshops organized by advanced physicians for example the one by Doctor Bub that aims at crating awareness to the learners who in this case are the health practitioners. It is to help them improve on their relationships with patients through communication skills (Bloom, 1996). The health professionals are also reminded that they should live to their title because the term doctor means to be a teacher. The workshops help them to learn from their previous mistakes they make in the course of their professional experiences other than living to suffer from them.
Primary prevention also requires the health professionals to be confident in their practices because it helps them perform well thus avoiding accidents that may occur when one is not sure in him or herself. Believing on one self saves time which would otherwise have been lost when going back to notes that offer suggestions on the diagnosed problem. This helps reduce the patient waiting problem because in most cases one medical practitioner attends to many patients.
The anesthesiology department normally conducts an evaluation in order to assess the condition of the patient before the surgical process take place and also to prepare the patient who is to undergo the process. This is done before and after the surgical procedures and is done outside the theater. The aim is to provide management of pain services after the after the operation procedure and also to observe the response to the operative procedure and the healing process. This helps identify complications that may arise before and after the operative process.
The emergency centers run twenty four hours to attend to patients who are critically ill and those who may be injured though they may be minor injuries. It helps solve problems that may arise in case the injuries are left to bleed thus causing anemia or the wound being infected as it may lead to patients suffering from diseases like tetanus. Other complications may also arise if the injuries are not attended to within a short time for example prolonged healing among other problems. They also provide palliative care where the doctors provide multidisciplinary services to help attend to those suffering from the different chronic diseases.
Conclusion
Primary prevention is an important practice in all medical divisions because it involves counter attacking a problem that may be otherwise disastrous. In the school of medical surgery, it plays a major role in the side of the medical practitioner and the patients because for the two groups it helps solve prevention of other complications if it is ignored. For the medical practitioner it ensures perfection in their work while to the patients it helps them manage existing medical problems and prevention of other diseases or even deaths.
References
Bloom, M. (1996). Primary Prevention Practices (Issues in Children’s and Families’ Lives). (1st ed.). New York, NY: Sage Publications, Inc.
Cohen, L. Chavez V. & Chehimi S. (2007). Prevention is Primary: Strategies for Community Well Being. (1st ed.). New York, NY: Jossey-Bass.
Gullotta, T. P., & Bloom, M. (2003). Primary Prevention and Health Promotion. The Journal of Primary Prevention, 285(5), 648-650.