The health care system has experienced unmatched change and growth in recent years, but especially during the past twenty years. These changes reflect a multitude of developments, including fundamental shifts in the philosophical and political foundations, advances in the technology of medicine, evolving consumer's expectations toward the physicians, and different characteristics of the population and the healthcare problems they experience. The primary purpose of medicine (a helping profession) is to serve the needs of the patients. Physicians advise the possible cure and assistance to the patients by competently using the technology and their knowledge, for the proper treatment of any structural or metabolic defect, and restoration of a patient's function.

The physicians can practice both as an individual or as a team member. The main central function of physicians is to identify the problem by making an accurate diagnosis that is affecting the patients. The function of the physician is to make the patient feel better. In that case, for the physician, a certain amount of strictness, paternalism, and domination may be necessary. The conditions that are either self-limited or beyond the capabilities of medicine forces the patients to visit the doctors.

Physicians also decide:

• Which diagnostic tests to order
• What therapies to be employed
• Which medications to be prescribed
• Whether or not a patient should be hospitalized
• Physicians also perform the surgery and other procedures and also decides when to discharge the patients

Educational role of physicians:

The educational function of physicians is different from the research functions of the doctors. All physicians are educators, and one of the primary roles of the physician in the doctor-patient relationship is to impart information in a useful manner—that is, to educate. The physicians also teach, at the bedside, in the hospital, and in the classroom when training medical interns, residents, and students. The problem of how to prepare physicians to be good educators needs to be investigated, as most of the physician's skills as educators are self-taught, with varying degrees of success. Although only a few physicians become full-time administrators, most must perform at least some administrative functions, either in the more formal functions within a practice, a hospital, or a medical school setting or running of their private practices.

Finally, all physicians are noteworthy citizens because of their status in society and level of education. The social responsibility of physicians for becoming involved in issues that are not health issues per se requires consideration.

Due to the increasing size of the industry and its impact on the economy, the future physicians should adequately understand the healthcare system and also need to understand the government's participation. There probably will be a more significant role for physicians to contribute to the elucidation of health policy issues and to the implementation of health policies than there has been in the past.

In future, the physician will probably also have increasing responsibility in nonmedical issues also, relating to the environment, to violence, and to aggression which impacts directly on the quality of survival. Physicians in the future will also need to work increasingly with other health professionals and with other sectors of society in designing and implementing policies related to healthcare costs. and their containment in the context of continuously improving the quality care for the whole population.