Topic 3 - Medical Pluralism

Question 1

Aboriginal Health

Answer 1

Not just the physical well-being of an individual but refers to the social, emotional and cultural well-being of the whole community. It is a whole of life view and includes the cyclical concept of life and death.

Question 2

Reductionism

Answer 2

The belief that all illnesses can be explained and treated by reducing them to biological and pathological factors.

Question 3

Biological Determinism

Answer 3

An unproven belief that individual and group behaviour and social status are an inevitable result of biology.

Question 4

Victim Blaming

Answer 4

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.

Question 5

Medical Dominance

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine)

Answer 6

A term used to described both alternative medical practitioners and practices that may stand in opposition to orthodox medicine and also those who may collaborate with and thus complement, orthodox practice. Also referred to as Folk healing.

Question 7

Medical Pluralism

Answer 7

A general term that refers to the vast array of healing modalities across the globe, in particular to the increasing popularity of alternative therapies and their coexistence with biomedicine in Westernised societies.

Question 8

Integrative Medicine

Answer 8

The blending of Biomedicine with another healing modality, such as a form of Complementary and Alternative Medicine.