Medicine still measures matter: molecules, cells, body parts, pharmacological products. Bernard sets out the case for a third term. Life, on this reading, is a pattern of matter, energy and information together — and a pattern cannot be weighed, it has to be mapped.
The biomedical model (or Biomedicine) that dominated medical thinking during most of the twentieth century has been the basis of medical education, and initiated enormous advances in technology, surgery, pharmacology and genetics, which have been life-saving and contributed considerably to the extension of human life span.
The problem with Biomedicine is that it is based on a reductionistic Newtonian paradigm, which places too much emphasis on easily identifiable diseases of the body, leading to the de-personalization of the patient.
During the latter part of the twentieth century the bio-psycho-social approach came to the fore. It shifted the focus towards the patient and to the recognition that the environment also contributed to health and ill health. Today this approach forms the basis of curricula at many medical schools all over the world. While the bio-psycho-social approach is more holistic, and medical students get a more rounded and inclusive education, health in general is not improving. More and more money is spent on medicine, while diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer, are on the increase. The economic nature of medical practice continues to reduce the amount of time a doctor spends with the patient. A ten to fifteen minute consultation unavoidably means that ‘disease’ is still a priority, for which the easiest answer is a pharmacological product.
The emphasis of medicine is still on measurable ‘materialistic’ aspects, such as matter embodied in molecules, cells, body parts and pharmacological products, and energy variations, such as electromagnetic (heat, light, etc), electrical (stimulation and diagnosis), or mechanical (motion, sound, etc) energy. In general these energy variations are often high-powered and invasive, such as electroconvulsive therapy and high powered lasers used in surgery while the ‘softer’ varieties are used by integrative doctors, physiotherapists and other health practitioners to stimulate healing, for example ultrasound therapy, low energy lasers and low energy electrical devices.
