When it comes to understanding health doctors and other medical professional’s use what is know as the biomedical model of health. The biomedical model treats illness as strictly something that is wrong with the workings of the body caused by things such as germs, disease and accidents and doesn’t take in to account a persons social or mental factors. The biomedical model also gives doctors a set of basic guidelines in which to work to. These guidelines include some practices that the general public would just take as obvious, for example; putting the care of the patient as top priority, to do no harm to the patient and to provide a cure for the patients ailment. These are all things we expect to get when we visit the doctor as this is why we go there.
The disease prevention and treatments were patriarchal in which masculine force was used to evict disease out of body (Robinson, 2004). An example- (any) mental illness was treated using force (beating, fire etc) because they considered mind and body as separate (dualistic), did not have the understanding that changes in electrolytes/toxins or social factors could causes mental illness. Contemporary Health Promotion is based on health literacy - making people aware of the causative factors for diseases, how to prevent illness and value of health by reinforcing quality of life. Health is redefined as the manner in which we live well, irrespective of our inescapable illness, trauma, or disabilities. The new science view human beings as living things (organic), holistic (not broken down) interconnected (social, emotional, spiritual, and physical factors), and feminine values of nurturing, compassion and trust ( Egalitarian) are used in treatment (Robinson, 2004).
The biomedical model assumes that bacteria, a faulty gene, a virus or an accident such as falling down the stairs causes an illness. Furthermore that illness is the result of an identifiable cause. Conversely it is not the result of an evil spirit or curse. Illness can be identified and classified into different types for example diseases of the nervous system, respiratory diseases and chronic diseases. This whole process of identifying and classifying is viewed as that of an objective nature that has created very little disagreement amongst the medical profession.
The issue of whether all mental illnesses stem from a clear psychological background or wether they are socially constructed is a big factor in the argument of whether mental illness is infact a medical gaze. This research essay will address the question, is mental illness one example of the medical/clinical gaze? Why? Why not? This essay will argue that mental illness is not as such an example of the medical gaze, but that more so the medical gaze has played a role in determining the discourse of mental illness.
Many scholars around the world are of the same opinion that to fully understand and adequately address health problems it is no longer enough to focus only on the biomedical model. Instead, more attention needs to be devoted to behavioural, social and environmental factors. Traditionally the biomedical model only focused on biological factors such as pathogens to diagnose a person’s illness or disorder. It suggested that being ‘healthy’ was to be free of disease, pain or defect and did not include any psychological or behavioural factors. With the emergence of the biopsychosocial perspective in the 1970’s, numerous health providers worldwide shifted their attention to investigating how biological, psychological and social processes (which includes thoughts, emotions and behaviours) operate simultaneously to affect physical health outcomes.
This essay will be looking at what is meant by the term social model of health and I will be describing the differences when it is compared to the medical model of health. The social model of health is a view that health is multidimensional with social factors, such as class, gender and ethnicity, influencing and patterning health and illness. The medical model of health is a specific way of thinking about and explaining disease based on biological factors One of the recognized explanations of health is established by the World Health Organisation (WHO 1946). WHO defined health as state of complete physical, mental, spiritual and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. (WHO, 1946).
The Army has a phrase for determining precedence in medevacs which has served me well in determining what is an emergency: “life, limb, or eyesight.” Second, immediate intervention is indicated to minimize or alleviate the dangers. Lastly, the patient must be incapable of giving consent with no legal surrogate available. A legal surrogate is someone that has a healthcare power of attorney, is a legal guardian, or a family member. (Baillie et al., 2010, p.48). I chose to write about case number three since I am familiar with crush injuries and the pre-hospital and surgical interventions indicated for them.
Abstract Hospital accreditation is not the same as licensure or certification. Licensure is required to operate as a hospital and overseen by state government officials. Certification affords hospitals to participate in federally funded Medicare and Medicaid programs. Accreditation is defined as “A self-assessment and external peer assessment process used by health care organizations to accurately assess their level of performance in relation to established standards and to implement ways to continuously improve.” (Raik, 2001) For this case assessment I will discuss the role of accreditation as well as whether or not accreditation is mandatory. Finally I will discuss any weaknesses inherent in the healthcare accreditation process.
Jehovah’s Witness: Blood transfusions and Ethical Principles Randy Alex University of West Florida Abstract This paper discusses the ethical dilemma of caring for a patient, who is Jehovah’s Witness, and is refusing blood transfusions to treat a serious illness that could be life threating. Taking into account the six ethical principles, autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, fidelity, and veracity, I will address the patient’s and the health care teams’ viewpoint on the situation. Jehovah’s Witness: Blood transfusions and Ethical Principles “Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that an individual’s life is contained within blood and that accepting transfusion of blood and blood products is sinful” (Effa-Heap, 2009). Respecting a patient’s decisions, even if it is different from your own, and continuing care of that patient is the responsibility of the healthcare team. “From an ethical viewpoint, if a rational adult who has been fully apprised of the consequences of not receiving this treatment persists in a refusal, the decision should be respected” (Effa-Heap, 2009).
M1 – biomedical and social – medical models of health The biomedical model of health looks at individual physical functioning and describes bad health and illness as the presence of disease and symptoms of illness as a result of physical causes such as injury or infections and doesn’t look at the social and psychological factors. E.g. biomedical models assume that the complexity of individual can be reduced so that by accumulating facts about the parts that make up their body a decision about how to fix that part will result in health Its weakness of this model is that it lies in its failure to fully include psychosocial factors which have proven to be powerful co-factors of disease in modern society. The strength of the biomedical model is its proven success as a roadmap for diagnosis and treatment of a multitude of diseases over the past two centuries The social model of health looks at how society and our environment affect our everyday health and wellbeing, including factor such as social class, occupation, education, income and poverty, poor diet and pollution. E.g.