Paradigms of Health Care

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Recommended: Advantages and disadvantages of using traditional medicine

Paradigms of Health Care Openings: In this paper I will be discussing the two most prevalent models of health. These two models of health are not, of course, total opposites. Similar to terms such as gay and straight they are two definitive labels placed upon a broad spectrum that is hardly definitive. There exists in this case as well a large clouded middle between the two limiting labels. These are collections of thoughts about how to go about continuing life. These two paradigms in modern healthcare I hope will one-day come to know one another. For now let us say that in generally speaking there are two different approaches or models of medicine and they are allopathic and holistic. Allopathic is another term for our modern western medicine, which in the United States is the dominant one and the one most familiar to the masses. The other, the holistic model, also known as alternative, is commonly associated with older ideas that originated in the East. Allopathic and Holistic: This first paradigm of thinking when it comes to medicine is the modern-day allopathic approach. This model of care has behind it an idea that there is a separation between the body and mind. The mind is seen as secondary to the body. Illnesses that are seen as psychosomatic are to be fixed in the mind and perhaps the patient would even be referred to a psychiatrist. The training of a medical doctor in this approach rests primarily on looking to quantitative information like research and charts. It does not matter who the observer is the same results should be achieved. This approach views the other as being outdated and sometimes even uncivilized. The second paradigm of thinking, the holistic model believes that there is a c... ... middle of paper ... ...e in charge of. My journey has been from allopathic to holistic and currently in a corroboration of allopathic therapies from my own General Practitioner and a number of holistic ones that I have through my own research came to use. For me it seems that I have thrown out many greater evils of drug use and drinking to these lesser evils. I see this now as a process that if I were not meant to experience I would not be. Becoming dependent upon anything I think is in no way good no matter if that thing were called religion, addiction, hobby or love. I believe that the seeking of balance is a must. And one cannot forever deny who he is. As Shakespeare said "To think own self be true". A lesson I am currently trying to employ and so unfortunate it is that "Once the mind has been stretched from a new idea it can never again return to its original state" ~ Einstein.

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