Towards A Systems View Of Medicine
Item
Title
Towards A Systems View Of Medicine
Description
EJOM (2009), Hill, Sandra.
Abstract
This article was written in response to the lecture given by Dr Jan van der Greef at Westminster University on 16 March 2009, ‘Systems Biology: the Unifying Bridge between Western and Chinese Medicine’.Systems biology understands the body as a self-regulating, self-replicating system, constantly in exchange and dialogue with its environment. Each part exists in a delicate balance with every other part. Our cells communicate one with the other. The nervous system resonates with the immune system. Messages are transmitted through the blood stream by hormones that in turn affect our emotions; our hormones affect our moods, our moods affect our immunity. Interconnectivity, interdependence, the mapping of patterns of relationships are the stuff of systems thinking. The same ideas are at the basis of Chinese medicine, but they have often been disregarded, put to one side, swept under the carpet, in order to gain respectability and fit in with the models of old paradigm reductionist science. As practitioners of Chinese medicine, the author suggests that it may be time for us to embrace this new science, to make use of its vocabulary and methodology, and to bring an awareness, which began for some of us in the 1970s, into the 21st century.
Alternative Title
EJOM
Creator
Date
Date Created
2/28/2015
Language
English
Type
Journal Article
issn
1351-6647
issue
2
volume
6