A consultation consists of requesting information or advice on a certain matter.
The first thing we are going to do is determine the etymological origin of the term consultation and that means that we realize that it is found in Latin. More accurately, we can establish that it comes from the word consulere , which can be translated as “ask for advice.”
The action and effect of consulting is known as consultation . The verb allows us to refer to examining a matter with one or more people, seeking data on a subject or asking for advice. For example: “I have a question for you: do you know how to get to the beach?” , “The boy asked the president a question that aroused laughter from those present” , “A customer asked me a question about the service that I couldn't answer and my boss got angry” .
Asking a question, in general, is linked to requesting the opinion or instruction of another person . Whoever consults expects to obtain useful information to satisfy their needs or achieve their objectives. This logic applies to both the simplest query (asking the time on the street, finding out how to get to a destination) and the most complex (a professional query).
The medical consultation
When a person goes to a doctor with a concern, it is also called a consultation. The medical consultation is the time in which the patient is with the professional in a specific space (the office or home of the person suffering from the health problem), while the doctor provides his opinion and recommends the steps to follow.
Medical consultations must be recorded in a document that has informative, scientific and legal value. This document, which is part of the patient's medical history , records the doctor's actions.
A medical consultation involves an interaction between a medical professional and a patient.
The opinion of the people
However, within the political sphere the word in question is also used. Thus, it is common for it to be established that a specific government (municipal, regional, national...) is going to carry out consultations in order to be clear about the population's position on a given issue.
Thus, for example, in Spain there was a strong controversy with the consultation that the Parliament of Catalonia wanted to carry out. And it was intended to find out what Catalan citizens thought about the possibility that this autonomous community could request and pursue the country's independence.
A rather touchy issue that caused conflicts between the national and Catalan institutions, the former considering that this independence is contrary to the Constitution and the latter for establishing that they are an undervalued region and that their interests are not respected.
Consultation in the field of computing
In recent years, due to the rise of the Internet and what would become email, the term consultation is commonly used in the following expression: “I am going to check the email.” What we are trying to express with it is that we are going to proceed to look at our own email account to see if any new messages have been received.
In computing , a query is a method that allows you to access data in a database and perform various actions (modify, add, delete information, etc.).