No Approved Therapeutic Claim/Use!

I had always wanted to talk about this with my patients but I have not had the time to sufficiently discuss this.

As a medical doctor I cannot and will not endorse any product which has a 'No Therapeutic Use' on its label. I am for any thing herbal and natural but it does not mean that I will disregard the safety of my patients.

I have a professor in Medschool that is an advocate of herbal medicine but she is also a medical doctor. And so, while advocating for herbal medicine, she tediously explained the process and the science of preparing an herbal medicine, and so let's take some important points about it:

• Herbal medicine preparations should be an exact ....science. This simply means that exact measurements should be used. Meaning if you prepare (let's take for an example Sambong leaves) leaves, and you are instructed to take 5 leaves. You should take leaves with proportionally same size with each other. There are some preparations that prescribes the exact size of the leaves like for example (I am only hypothesizing here) Sambong leaves should have 1-inches leaves while recommendations for Malunggay leaves is only 1-cm leaves. AND there are different preparations for barks, roots, fruits, etc.
• Even the procedures in preparations should be exact. As my mentor explained, preparing a decoction is also exact meaning a certain decoction is prescribed with a 1 cup water while others are prescribed with a 1 glass water (yes a cup is different from a glass!). If you boil a decoction for 30 minutes and you start the time from the moment you pour the water into the pot, it may be a whole lot different if you start the 30-minute time on the moment that the water boils. Plus there's a difference if the instruction is like 'You boil the leaves with 2 cups water until the point that the water remaining is only 1 cup.'
• The time of the day when you pick up a leaf/root/bark matters. We had been advised that the perfect time to pick leaves is in the morning just before the sun rises as the leaves has the perfect consistency to it.

Field Health Services and Information System

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Field Health Services Information System Objectives

• To provide summary of data on health services delivery and selected program accomplished indicators at the barangay, municipality/city, district, provincial, regional and national levels
• To provide data which when combined with data from other sources, can be used for program monitoring and evaluation purposes
• To provide a standardized, facility level database which can be accessed for a more in-depth studies
• To ensure that the data to the FHSIS are useful and accurate and are disseminated in a timely and easy to use fashion
• To minimize the recording and reporting burden at the service delivery level in order to allow more time for patient care and promotive activities

Demography

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 Demography

• science which deals with the study of the human population size, composition and distribution in space
• Population size - refers to the number of people in a given place or area at a given time
• When the population is characterized in relation to certain variables such as age, sex, occupation or educational level, then the population composition is being described
• The nurse also describes how people are distributed in a specific geographic location

Epidemiology

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Epidemiology

• the study of occurences and distribution of diseases as well as the distribution and determinants of health states or events in a specified population, and the application of this study to the control of health problems
• this emphasizes that epidemiologists are concerned not only with deaths, illness and disability, but also with more positive health states and with the means to improve health
• backbone of the prevention of disease

Vital Statistics

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Statistics

• refers to a systematic approach of obtaining, organizing and analyzing numerical facts so that conclusions may be drawn from them

Vital Statistics

• refers to the systematic study of vital events such as births, illnesses, marriages, divorce, separation and deaths
• statistics of disease (morbidity) and death (mortality) indicate the state of health of a community and the success or failure of health work

Research Designs and Research Proposal

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Research Designs

• refer to the way in which the investigator plans and structures the research process
• the design provides flexible guideposts that keep the research headed in the right direction
• Qualitative - one in which the investigator plans to observe, discover, describe, compare and analyze the characteristic attribute, themes and underlying dimensions of a particular unit
• Qualitative - concerned with measuring the magnitude, size or extent of a phenomenon
• Descriptive-Exploratory - observes, describes, explores and assembles new knowledge
• Documentary-Historical - the investigator examines records and documents already in existence, major sources of data include official and unofficial documents, statistics, audiovisual media and general historical data

Research

Research

• means delving into a problem
• systematic, controlled, empirical and critical investigation of hypothetical propositions about the presumed relations among natural phenomena
• general system is followed whose elements are:
1. identification of the problem
2. extensive review of literature
3. formulation of the conceptual framework and hypotheses
4. designing its design and methodology
5. data collection
6. data analysis through the use of statistics and interpretation and drawing conclusions
7. giving recommendations