https://www.quora.com/What-is-your-definition-of-good-health@shagor ahamed
The other day, one of our manuscript editors sent me the following note: “What does ‘in good health’ mean? Has it ever been defined? How might patients' and doctors' definition of that phrase differ?”
At first, I considered those questions to be mundane, unimportant, and irrelevant. But the more I thought about them, the more intriguing they became, and the more variable and controversial their answers were. So I took the challenge and decided to delve into the matter.
I started by seeking a precise definition of health. According to one of my medical dictionaries,1 health is “a state of optimal physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.
Another medical dictionary2 defines health as “the condition of an organism with respect to the performance of its vital functions especially as evaluated subjectively or nonprofessionally.” And a nonmedical dictionary3 says: “… freedom from disease, pain, or defect….”
These reputable sources indicate that health is a somewhat inexact entity with broad boundaries and differing definitions. Consequently, health can be interpreted in a number of ways. As I will attempt to show, “in good health” is always and only an opinion.
Many of us have had patients who looked well, felt well, acted well, and had absolutely no complaints. Yet, by happenstance, we found them to have a serious disease: for example, metastatic carcinoma of the breast or prostate, kidney failure, a blood disorder, or a silent lung mass. At the time of such discoveries, these patients understandably believed that they were in good health, and from their standpoint, they were. And without further evaluation, their doctors probably would have agreed with them.
Now let us turn to another scenario. A healthy-appearing, asymptomatic patient comes to the office for a yearly check-up. The routine physical examination and basic laboratory studies yield normal findings, and the patient leaves with a “clean bill of health.” On the way to the parking lot, however, the patient drops dead of a myocardial infarction or suffers a massive intracranial hemorrhage. By all measures, the patient was truly in good health seconds before the good health ended. Sadly, despite the wealth of advanced medical technology available today, we doctors have no way of predicting with certainty when or how such events will occur. We can, however, be circumspect in using the phrase “in good health.”