Wellness and prevention: educating the family and contacts

Historically, the healing arts have been devoted to curing those already sick. Only in recent decades has disease prevention by vaccination, quarantine, regulation of food, water and drugs, proper garbage and water disposal and health education become procedures utilized by the medical and allied health practitioners. Today, maintenance of wellness is the novel but desirable role to be undertaken by health professionals. To do this, doctors and allied health personnel must become conversant with information from many scientific and social disciplines, must become skillful communicators and teachers, and must be personal examples of wellness. This role - especially of education and communication - must be carried out not only with clients but also with the family and contacts of patients.