Medical Pluralism Flashcards
Aboriginal health
Refers to the health of the whole community not just the individual. It is a whole of life view and includes the cyclical concept of life-death-life.
Reductionism
The belief that all illnesses can be explained and treated by results I feel them to biological and pathological factors.
Biological determinism
An unproven belief that individual and group behaviour and social status are an inevitable result of biology.
Victim-blaming
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 their assumed psychological, cultural and/or biologically inferiority.
CAM (Complimentary and alternative medicine)
A broad term to describe 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.
