On a medicine of the whole person: away from scientistic reductionism and towards the embrace of the complex in clinical practice.

摘要

Si quis dixerit 'Medicina non scientia est', anathema sit. 'If anyone says medicine is not a science, let him be condemned'. Readers with more than a cursory familiarity with Roman Catholic dogmatic theology would be forgiven for imagining that the editorial board charged with the latest revision of Denzinger [1] had co-opted one of the few remaining apologists of the evidence-based medicine (EBM) movement to its work. Certainly, if such a condemnation were to be introduced into that formidable mechanism charged with the protection of the Depositum Fidei, then this author would surely face formal censure. For it is his opinion that medicine is decidedly not a science, but rather primarily a human endeavour which employs science - and only in part [2,3].