Why should medical history be taken during a medical examination?

This is an automatically translated article.

The article was professionally consulted by Specialist Doctor I Nguyen Hong Phuc - Emergency Resuscitation Doctor, Emergency Resuscitation Department - Vinmec Phu Quoc International General Hospital. The doctor has nearly 20 years of experience in Emergency Resuscitation.
According to the medical examination and treatment law, taking a medical history is a part of helping to diagnose and prescribe appropriate treatment. When a doctor prescribes a drug, it must also be based on the results of the clinical and laboratory examination, along with medical history, family, occupation and epidemiology.

1. Take personal medical history

Exploiting medical history to establish health records of visitors. Personal medical history may include:
Allergies; Medical history; Surgery performed; Vaccination book ; Test results; Clinical and physical examination. In addition, the medical history should also include information about the medications the examiner is taking and their health habits, such as diet and exercise. Taking your medical history helps identify risk factors that are more likely to be related to your own health.

2. Take family medical history

Each person inherits half of their genes from their parents. Inherited genes not only determine appearance, but can also increase or decrease the risk of certain diseases.
Family medical history is a record of illnesses and medical conditions (current and past) affecting close family members. If possible, family health history should include at least 3 generations, such as parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, children and grandchildren. For each person, try to collect all of the following information:
Gender; Date of birth; Nation; Medical conditions; Mental health condition (alcohol or other substance abuse); Pregnancy complications (miscarriage, stillbirth, birth defects or infertility); Age at diagnosis; Living habits (diet, exercise and smoking); Life expectancy and cause of death of deceased loved ones. Pay special attention to conditions that develop earlier than usual, such as high blood pressure in a young person, or problems that affect more than one family member.
Information about the country of origin, race of family members - for example, Germany, Africa, China, etc. would also be helpful as some health problems are more common in specific ethnic groups.

3. The role of taking medical history

Family health history provides a detailed look at common medical conditions among family members. This information is used to understand more about a person's risk of certain genetic diseases.
However, taking personal and family medical history only provides information about risk, not predicts future health. Other factors - such as diet, weight, exercise habits, and risk of exposure to environmental factors - also influence the risk of certain diseases.
After you have compiled the information, you can give your doctor a copy of your personal and family medical history. Your doctor will ask a number of questions to clarify the content and explain to you the relevance of certain medical conditions. At the same time, you or other family members will also be instructed to take precautions or order screening tests.
When more children are born, or someone in the family begins to have a certain illness, update your family medical history and share this information with your doctor. Taking a medical history can take a lot of time and effort, but it can improve the health of your whole family and generations to come.

4. Assess risk from medical history

Currently, most hospitals around the world have regular health check-ups for all ages. The person who comes to the clinic will be assessed for risk from medical history and monitor health status. This is the best way to protect health, as well as a new prevention trend that is highly appreciated by medical experts.
By taking your medical history , your doctor can use this information to:
Assess you or other family members at risk for/without certain genetic diseases; Recommend changes in diet or lifestyle habits to reduce the risk of disease; Prescribe medications or treatments to reduce the risk of disease; Determine what diagnostic tests you or a family member should have, which includes genetic testing; Recommended type and frequency of routine screening; Informs about genetic risk to offspring in people planning to have children. Vinmec International General Hospital also deploys many complementary examination packages under the General Health Checkup Program, suitable to the needs of all customer groups.
Service packages are designed to bring many benefits to users, helping to detect diseases early, save money and time, have high healing capacity, cause less disability and are extremely convenient. Customers will be screened and screened by the most modern equipment system, such as PET/CT machine, MRI, CT 640, advanced ultrasound system, international standard laboratory, etc. .. If a disease is detected after examination, customers will be treated by a team of leading Vinmec doctors in specialties with outstanding quality.

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Reference sources: mayoclinic.org, cancer.gov, kcb.vn