Historian (medical)
Encyclopedia
"Historian" is a term used by medical professionals (particularly doctors
and nurses) to describe a narrator of a medical history
.
Medical history is usually divided into surgical history (all prior surgeries), social history (sexual, recreational, and alcohol/drug factors), family history (heritable diseases and conditions and their presence in family members), and health or personal health history (the subject's prior illnesses, together with their treatments and outcomes). A patient's ability to "give a good history," that is to accurately recall and describe the details of relevant background, is essential in the treatment of an illness.
This term has nothing to do with the subject of History
per se and derives instead form the ancient Greek
meaning of "history" as "narrative." Patients who are "poor historians" will often require the intervention of family members or care givers to provide the missing pieces of history. Patients who mislead doctors about their histories, either consciously or unconsciously, can greatly aggravate the process of diagnosis and delay treatment by requiring the physician to obtain all past medical records.
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
and nurses) to describe a narrator of a medical history
Medical history
The medical history or anamnesis of a patient is information gained by a physician by asking specific questions, either of the patient or of other people who know the person and can give suitable information , with the aim of obtaining information useful in formulating a diagnosis and providing...
.
Medical history is usually divided into surgical history (all prior surgeries), social history (sexual, recreational, and alcohol/drug factors), family history (heritable diseases and conditions and their presence in family members), and health or personal health history (the subject's prior illnesses, together with their treatments and outcomes). A patient's ability to "give a good history," that is to accurately recall and describe the details of relevant background, is essential in the treatment of an illness.
This term has nothing to do with the subject of History
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
per se and derives instead form the ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
meaning of "history" as "narrative." Patients who are "poor historians" will often require the intervention of family members or care givers to provide the missing pieces of history. Patients who mislead doctors about their histories, either consciously or unconsciously, can greatly aggravate the process of diagnosis and delay treatment by requiring the physician to obtain all past medical records.