NURS1003 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Umbilical Cord, Thalidomide, Bush Tucker
Topic 3: Medical Pluralism (more than one)
Health
Biomedicine ‐ “a malfunction of the body’s biological mechanisms”
WHO (1946) ‐ “a state of complete physical, mental and social well‐being and not merely the
absence of disease or infirmity”
Aboriginal Health ‐ “not just the physical well‐being of an individual but refers to the social,
emotional and cultural well‐being of the whole Community in which each individual is able
to achieve their full potential as a human being, thereby bringing about the total well‐being
of their Community”
Challenges for biomedicine
Not complete neutral healing system – affected by culture and the society in which it
operates
Reductionism: “The belief that all illnesses can be explained and treated by reducing them to
biological and pathological factors”
Biological Determinism: “Assumes people’s biology causes or determines socioeconomic
status and health status”
Victim‐blaming: “The process whereby social inequality is explained in terms of individuals
being solely responsible for what happens to them in relation to the choices they make and
their assumed psychological, cultural and/or biological inferiority”
= all of these processes remove social responsibility for the conditions in which
illness/disease arises and is treated.
3 Types of Healers:
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Examples of Folk Healers
Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs)
Shamans
Medicine men and men
Holy people
Herbalists
‘Witch doctors’
roles involve years of training and/or apprenticeship
Benefits of Folk Healing
1. Involves family and community in diagnosis and treatment
2. Share world view, health ideology, culture
3. Informality
4. Language similarity
5. Familiar setting
6. Affordable and accessible
7. Known – similar SES
8. One healer and one causal explanation for multiple aspects of health: physical,
mental, psychological, spiritual
Medical Dominance
Medical Dominance: “A general term used to describe the power of the medical profession
in terms of its control over its own work, over the work of other health workers, and over
health resource allocation, health policy and the way that hospitals are run”
1. Control over its own work: professional autonomy of doctors, content in university
degrees, accreditation processes
2. Control over the work of other health workers: GPs are the ‘gateway’ to other
services, particularly allied health care
3. Control over resource allocation: Decisions about distribution of money for research,
development, training etc.
4. Control over health policy: Decisions about what to include, focus, priorities
5. Control over hospital management: power of doctors over others in medical
hierarchy
Complementary and Alternative Medicine
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Biomedicine a malfunction of the body"s biological mechanisms . Who (1946) a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity . Not complete neutral healing system affected by culture and the society in which it operates. Reductionism: the belief that all illnesses can be explained and treated by reducing them to biological and pathological factors . Biological determinism: assumes people"s biology causes or determines socioeconomic status and health status . Victim blaming: the process whereby social inequality is explained in terms of individuals being solely responsible for what happens to them in relation to the choices they make and their assumed psychological, cultural and/or biological inferiority . = all of these processes remove social responsibility for the conditions in which illness/disease arises and is treated. Witch doctors" roles involve years of training and/or apprenticeship. Involves family and community in diagnosis and treatment: share world view, health ideology, culture.
