Four Basic Concepts of Medical Science

Abstract
It might be thought that the basic concept in medical science is that of health. However, as it turns out, medicine has little or nothing to say about health. (This is less true of some of the other health sciences and health professions, notably nursing and public health.) Instead it is diseases, injuries, impairments, and, to a lesser extent, symptoms which are the focus of concern in medicine. It is a generally recognized and frequently bemoaned fact that in this country, contemporary medicine and medical education largely ignore, not only the promotion of health, but even the prevention of disease and injury. (Medical educators are among those most acutely aware of this situation.) Instead, medicine is principally concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of medical crisis.It is small wonder that in explicating the concept of health as it is found in the theories which inform the practice of medicine, Boorse arrives at a negative notion, viz., health as the absence of disease and injury.

This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit: