Question

A primary care physician is a doctor who treats many types of illness and injuries. A specialist is a medical professional who has chosen to focus on one field of medicine, such as an oncologist, who treats only cancer, or a podiatrist, who focuses only on treating foot conditions. What are the advantages of seeing a specialist as opposed to a primary care physician? List at least one circumstance in which you might want to see a specialist, and at least one circumstance in which you might want to see a primary care physician. About 238,000 results (1.16 seconds) "as" (and any subsequent words) was ignored because we limit queries to 32 words.

Answer 1

Answer:

A visit to a specialist most likely becomes handy when the medical condition is critical. Critical in the sense that the generalist medical practitioner has tried unsuccessfully to treat such a condition without success.

 

For instance, I know a friend who has tried severally to treat as skin allergy which occurs on her hands and fingers. At first, we all thought it was a minor skin irritation or fungal infection which would go away. She became worried after seeing three different generalists doctors and using at least 8 different epiderm creams.

An epiderm cream is a cream that is used to treat skin infections or conditions.

So at this point, she decided to see a specialist.

One of the advantages of seeing a specialist is that they are very versed in the treatment of a narrow area of medicine and are most likely to come up with solutions that were missed by the generalist. I once had an eye allergy which was recurrent. I was forced to see a specialist after several years of managing it and being used as a "guinea pig" by generalist practitioners, all of which were unsuccessful at treating the ailment and who didn't have the decency to recommend a specialist.

Another advantage of seeing a specialist is that they are thorough and unlike the generalist, less likely to give a misdiagnosis. A misdiagnosis or a wrong treatment, such as it was in my experience above, can prove to be quite costly and even fatal.

So it's best to see a specialist if you have tried a generalist medical practitioner and the situation persists after several treatments. A good generalist practitioner would recommend seeing a specialist as soon as they spot a history of recurrent unsuccessful treatments from generalists.

On the other hand, for treatment of minor ailments, such as a cold, a minor burn, or infection, it is safe to see a generalist.

Cheers