Fundamentals of Health Care and Anatomy & Physiology
This domain tests precise definitions of health and illness, how health care is organised from sub-centre to super-specialty hospital, and the anatomical vocabulary used to describe where an organ or a symptom lies. Questions mix one-line definitions with directional-term, body-plane and body-cavity identification.
Core rules and concepts
- Health (WHO, 1948) is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Disease is objectively demonstrable pathology; illness is the person's subjective experience of being unwell.
- Levels of care: primary (sub-centre/Ayushman Arogya Mandir, PHC - promotive, preventive, first contact), secondary (CHC, district hospital - specialist outpatient and inpatient care), tertiary (medical colleges, super-specialty institutes).
- Anatomy = structure; physiology = function. Both are described in the anatomical position: standing erect, eyes forward, arms at the sides with palms forward, feet together.
- Planes: sagittal divides left from right; coronal (frontal) divides front from back; transverse divides upper from lower.
- Directional pairs: anterior/posterior, superior/inferior, medial/lateral, proximal/distal (nearer/farther from point of attachment), superficial/deep.
- Organisation: cell → tissue → organ → organ system → organism, with homeostasis keeping the internal environment stable.
Worked example
A nurse charts pain in the right iliac region. Reasoning: the abdomen is divided by two mid-clavicular lines and the transumbilical plane into nine regions; the right iliac region is the lower-outer region, below the umbilicus and lateral to the midline. It contains the caecum and appendix, so pain there with rebound tenderness suggests appendicitis - and you describe it as inferior and lateral to the umbilicus.
Traps that cost marks
Writing the WHO definition without the word "social"; using "proximal" to mean "above"; treating sign (observed) and symptom (reported) as synonyms; naming the transverse plane as sagittal; confusing primary care with primary prevention.