How medicine lost consciousness: Part II
Jacques R. Kriel
South African Family Practice September 30, 1996 DOI: 10.4102/safp.v17i9.2364 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that medicine's adoption of the natural-science worldview has yielded technical advances but has excluded the patient's subjective experience of illness, leaving clinicians without tools to understand meaning in diagnosis, therapy, and healing. Proposes that a transformed clinical method requires a new model of science and of reality that recognizes consciousness as real. |
Abstract
Since the beginni,ng oJ the 19th century uestern medicine has identified itself with the natural sci,ences and therefore with the uorldaiew of the natural sci,mces.Thi,s natural sci,mce tu,tn led, to great technical insight into und control ofbodg processes arul technical a.d,aances in diagnasi,s and mana,gement of diseases.Howeuer, it has also fundamentally influenced the understandi,ng of the basic concepts of medici,ne such as patient, disease and th,erapA and, in this monner has had a decisiue i,nfluence on thp nature of cli,nical practice ond medi,cal research.It has specifically failed to gi,ue tlue clinici,an the tools to und,erstand, th,e meaning of th,e illness for th.e patimt and th,e role that these subjectiae meanings plays in d,iagnosis, therapy and, healing.This loss of consciousness is a major linxitirry factor of the mod,el Th,e regairui,rry of cottsciousness is a central, requi,rernmt for a tran sformed, cli,nical method,.The theoretical requirements which are necessarg before a transformed cl;itui,caL m,etlnd will be ancepted by the profession for medical practi,ce and research are deJi,ned as a new model of the nature of science and a new understanding of the structure oJ reality which can recognise consci,ousness as real.