Biomedicine and Medical Pluralism + Assignment

For this brief assignment, you will review some key terms: biomedicine and medical pluralism. You will then answer questions.

STEP 1: Read and Watch

You'll continue to hear the term, "biomedicine" used throughout the quarter. Our textbook defines biomedicine as, "The form of medicine that developed out of the scientific tradition in eighteenth century Europe. It view disease as having a unique biological cause within the body" (Wiley and Allen 217). (You'll also hear it referred to as "Western medicine.") Biomedicine has been very beneficial for humans; many of us in this class would not have survived to adulthood without it. At the same time most of us in this class have also tried to heal an ailment through biomedicine without success. Biomedicine has emerged from a certain cultural context and carries with it a series of assumptions, just like any medical system. Because biomedicine is used worldwide, people distinguish it from traditional medical systems, which refers to other models for illness that have developed all over the world, many of which are highly complex and pre-date biomedicine.  In actuality, most people live in communities with "medical pluralism," communities in which multiple healing systems coexist. Within an environment of medical pluralism in which biomedicine is dominant, other popular healing systems are often called "alternative medicine." Each healing system has assumptions about the cause of various ailments, the target of the treatment, the type of knowledge required to heal various ailments, and what successful healing (recovery) looks like. 

Scientific knowledge forms the basis for biomedicine. Please watch the video below called, How a Few Scientists Transformed the Way We Think about Disease (5 min). As you watch, think about: What are some of the characteristics of scientific knowledge?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9LC-3ZKiok

STEP 2: Write your Answers

1. Briefly describe: biomedicine, traditional medical systems, and medical pluralism.
2. What is the current theory that explains the cause of disease from a biomedical perspective?
3. What are some characteristics of scientific knowledge that you noticed in the film?

STEP 3: Submit your Answers

Submit your answers by clicking the blue, "Take The Survey" button below and copying each of your answers into the box at the bottom of the page. Although I am using the survey feature for this, it is not a survey. This is just an assignment. Do your best, but I'm not grading you on getting the right answer; you will be graded based on your sincere attempt to answer the questions and showing that you have read/watched the information, even if you didn't understand all of it.

Please get in touch if you have any issues submitting your answers. 

STEP 5: Check Answers

After you submit your answers, scroll to the bottom of the page and you should be able to see information from me for each question. This information is meant to help you affirm that you were on the right track in understanding the information or, if not, fill gaps in your understanding. You will only be able to see the answers once, so take any notes that you want to.