I believe that a patient’s living condition and socioeconomic situation highly impacts the diagnosis of a disease. For this reason, I think that one of the most important parts of a doctor’s visit is a good history. Training to be an osteopathic physician has taught me that as doctors, we cannot see a disease in isolation. We must see the whole patient as a unit. Therefore, a patient’s history will say a lot about its risk factors for different diseases. That takes me to the next question, which is undocumented workers’ exposure to Chagas disease. In general, undocumented workers are more likely to work outdoors for long hours and to live in places where living conditions are less than optimal. For this reason, these patients are more likely to get bitten by the mosquito that causes Chagas and therefore have a higher risk of contracting the disease.
Patient's environment and medicine