Quo Vadis Medical Healing: Past Concepts And New Approaches (international Library Of Ethics, Law, And The New Medicine, 44)

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Medical healing implies knowledge of the assumptions that underlie our understanding of "health," and, concomitantly, how we define well being and its opposites, illness and disease. Today, health, health care (business, wellness, recreation), and medicine (especially research-driven scientific medicine) have become separate entities with different institutions, budgets, marketing philosophies and "corporate cultures". Furthermore, healing is individual and subjective, yet at the same time also culturally determined. The present volume brings together papers on these topics in an unique interdisciplinary approach. The book provides an ethical framework for healthcare from a political perspective. It discusses definitions of the terminology of healing and health and their ethical and medical implications including their historical contexts. A separate section expands the theme of the cultural constructedness of healing by the concepts of traditional Chinese medicine and homeopathy. Modern medicine has a strong focus on acute care, which urgently needs to place greater emphasis on preventive medicine including the crucial importance of social factors on health and on the emergence of "public health". The point of view of Business Concepts, their potential and limitations are by no means neglected and the legal ramifications of genetic research and innovative medical strategies with regard to some of our most foundational notions are discussed.

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Quo Vadis Medical Healing INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF ETHICS, LAW, AND THE NEW MEDICINE Founding Editors DAVID C. THOMASMA† DAVID N. WEISSTUB, Université de Montréal, Canada THOMASINE KIMBROUGH KUSHNER, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A. Editor DAVID N. WEISSTUB, Université de Montréal, Canada Editorial Board TERRY CARNEY, University of Sydney, Australia MARCUS DÜWELL, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands SØREN HOLM, University of Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom GERRIT K. KIMSMA, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands DAVID NOVAK, University of Toronto, Canada EDMUND D. PELLEGRINO, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., U.S.A. DOM RENZO PEGORARO, Fondazione Lanza and University of Padua, Italy DANIEL P. SULMASY, Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers, New York, U.S.A. LAWRENCE TANCREDI, New York University, New York, U.S.A. VOLUME 44 For other titles published in this series, go to www.springer.com/series/6224 Susanna Elm • Stefan N. Willich Editors Quo Vadis Medical Healing Past Concepts and New Approaches Editors Susanna Elm University of California Berkeley, CA USA [email protected] ISBN: 978-1-4020-8941-1 Stefan N. Willich Charité University Medical Center Berlin Germany [email protected] e-ISBN: 978-1-4020-8942-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008936133 © 2009 Springer Science + Business Media B.V. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 springer.com Preface “Healing in Medicine” – the subject of this volume evolved in part as the continuation of an earlier gathering in 1999 in Berlin, when an interdisciplinary group of scholars came together to discuss some of the medical issues confronting us