What we call modern physics says something entirely new about the world and how it behaves. For many years, these theories have been accepted as the most accurate descriptions we have ever had about our world. Nevertheless, medicine has been reluctant to incorporate these ideas into itself, continuing to view the body as a clockwork mechanism, in which illness is caused by a breakdown of "parts." Drawing on his long experience in the practice of internal medicine and his knowledge of modern science, Dr. Dossey shows how medicine can and must be updated. Discussing the new theories of Bell, Godel, and others, he opens up startling questions for medicine: Could the brain be a hologram, in which every part contains the whole? Why have ordinary people been able to raise and lower blood pressure at will, control heart rate, body temperature, even one minute blood vessel, in a way no one can explain? What is the role of consciousness in health and illness? Perhaps the most startling of Dr. Dossey's discussions concerns nonlinear time. There is evidence that our obsession with time and our belief that time "flows" (a belief refuted by the new physics) may profoundly affect our health. "Time sickness" is becoming an accepted medical concept, a possible cause of the greatest killer of all—heart disease. Dr. Dossey presents remarkable clinical data showing that by changing their view of time, people have been able to positively affect the course of disease. Just as the clockwork picture of the universe was abandoned in the onslaught of new data, our mechanistic view of health and illness will give way to new models which, too, will be more consistent with the true face of the universe.

A chief aim of this resource is to rekindle interest in seeing health care not solely as a set of practices so problematic as to require ethical analysis by philosophers and other scholars, but as a field whose scrutiny is richly rewarding for the traditional concerns of philosophy.

A fascinating and controversial study of the central force that human consciousness exerts in health and illness, by the author of Recovering the Soul. Through numerous stories of his own patients, Dr. Dossey, a physician and leading spokesman for serious New Age thought, explores the role of meaning in well-being and mind-body interactions.

Today’s medicine is spiritually deflated and morally adrift; this book explains why and offers an ethical framework to renew and guide practitioners in fulfilling their profession to heal. What is medicine and what is it for? What does it mean to be a good doctor? Answers to these questions are essential both to the practice of medicine and to understanding the moral norms that shape that practice. The Way of Medicine articulates and defends an account of medicine and medical ethics meant to challenge the reigning provider of services model, in which clinicians eschew any claim to know what is good for a patient and instead offer an array of “health care services” for the sake of the patient’s subjective well-being. Against this trend, Farr Curlin and Christopher Tollefsen call for practitioners to recover what they call the Way of Medicine, which offers physicians both a path out of the provider of services model and also the moral resources necessary to resist the various political, institutional, and cultural forces that constantly push practitioners and patients into thinking of their relationship in terms of economic exchange. Curlin and Tollefsen offer an accessible account of the ancient ethical tradition from which contemporary medicine and bioethics has departed. Their investigation, drawing on the scholarship of Leon Kass, Alasdair MacIntyre, and John Finnis, leads them to explore the nature of medicine as a practice, health as the end of medicine, the doctor-patient relationship, the rule of double effect in medical practice, and a number of clinical ethical issues from the beginning of life to its end. In the final chapter, the authors take up debates about conscience in medicine, arguing that rather than pretending to not know what is good for patients, physicians should contend conscientiously for the patient’s health and, in so doing, contend conscientiously for good medicine. The Way of Medicine is an intellectually serious yet accessible exploration of medical practice written for medical students, health care professionals, and students and scholars of bioethics and medical ethics.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) originated from the traditional medical system in the Chinese civilization, with influences from the Daoist and Chinese folk traditions in bodily cultivation and longevity techniques. In the past few decades, TCM has become one of the leading alternative medical systems in the United States. This book demonstrates the fluidity of a medical ideological system with a rich history of methodological development and internal theoretical conflicts, continuing to transform in our postmodern world where people and ideas transcend geographic, ethnic, and linguistic limitations. The unique historical trajectories and cultural dynamics of the American society are crticial nutrients for the localization of TCM, while the constant traffic of travelers and immigrants foster the globalizing tendency of TCM. The practitioners in this book represent an incredible range of clinical applications, personal styles, theoretical rationalizations, and business models. What really unifies all these practitioners is not their specific practices but the goal of these practices. The shared goal is to strive for health, not just health in terms of the lack of illness but the ultimate health of achieving perfect balance in every aspect of the being of a person—physically, mentally, spiritually, and energetically.

This book provides a perspective on the concepts placebo and placebo effects, which has been missing so far: a detailed analysis of the history of the terms, their current use, suggested alternatives and the implications of the conceptual confusion. Everybody knows something about placebos and placebo effects. If, however, people are asked to define the concepts, the spectrum becomes wide. Does 'placebo' refer to an inert treatment or does it cover all elements of the patient-physician-interaction except for pharmacological or other physiological mechanisms? Furthermore, if, by definition, a placebo has no effect, what sense does it make to talk about a 'placebo effect'? Even in scientific literature the concepts ‘placebo’ and ‘placebo effect’ are used in many senses and often in a confusing way. While this book discusses many issues which keep puzzling physicians, it also covers the historical developments of the concepts of placebo and placebo effect as well as the conceptual confusion in the definitions. This book is intended for physicians, philosophers, psychologists and any other people interested in placebos, placebo effects and the physician-patient relationship.