Doctor Toxicologist - Duties, Specialization

2024 Author: Rachel Wainwright | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 07:39

Toxicologist

A toxicologist is a doctor who diagnoses, prevents, and treats poisoning. Poisoning - damage to the body by poisonous and harmful substances. As an independent profession, toxicology emerged in the 19th century, and the term toxicology itself comes from two Greek words: toxicos (poison) and logos (science). Thus, a toxicologist is engaged in the study and treatment of diseases resulting from the toxic effects of chemicals on the body. Accordingly, his main tasks are to find methods for improving and treating poisoning.

In addition to the search for remedies for the treatment and prevention of poisoning, the toxicologist has knowledge of the possibility of the beneficial use of poisons, since it is no secret to anyone that some poisons in small doses have a therapeutic effect on the body, while an overdose of seemingly completely safe drugs often leads to poisoning.

What diseases and organs are within the competence of a toxicologist?

First of all, when the body is poisoned with poisons, the liver, heart, kidneys and blood are affected. Therefore, in the practice of a toxicologist, the following diseases can most often be found:

• liver failure;
• poisoning;
• renal failure;
• intoxication of the body.

When should i see a toxicologist?

It is necessary to contact a toxicologist for any symptoms of body poisoning: alcoholic, narcotic, food, industrial and household, as well as for insect and snake bites, non-medical use of medicines. The competence of a toxicologist is to monitor patients with chronic intoxication of the body, as well as renal or hepatic insufficiency.

Intoxication of the body is acute and chronic. Acute intoxication means that the poisoning occurred once as a result of the use of a large amount of a poisonous substance. Acute intoxication proceeds violently, and its symptoms are very pronounced.

Chronic intoxication of the body occurs as a result of the accumulation in the body of small doses of a toxic substance over a long period. The most typical symptoms of chronic intoxication are: sleep disturbances, emotional instability, nausea, impaired memory and attention, headaches, fatigue, deterioration in appearance (pallor of the skin, changes in the condition of hair and skin).

What to expect at a toxicologist appointment?

At the first appointment, the toxicologist will try to determine the patient's classification and degree of poisoning. The main task of a toxicologist in providing first aid to a patient is to make the correct diagnosis. It is very important to correctly determine the classification of a toxic substance so that it can be removed from the body or neutralized inside the body. After that, the toxicologist proceeds to eliminate the consequences caused by poisoning.

The toxicologist adheres to approximately the following sequence when carrying out therapeutic measures as a result of patient poisoning with chemicals:

• Decrease in adsorption, that is, probe gastric lavage, stimulation of the gag reflex, patient intake of activated carbon, etc.
• Antidote therapy, that is, the patient's use of biochemical, chemical and symptomatic antagonists, antitoxic drugs.
• Strengthening of elimination, that is, stimulation of excretory functions and diuresis, the introduction of fluid, the patient's repeated intake of activated carbon.

In severe poisoning, when the patient falls into a coma, the toxicologist injects the drug flumazenil (anexat) intravenously.

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