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Book Cover
E-book
Author O'Connor, Bonnie Blair.

Title Healing traditions : alternative medicine and the health professions / Bonnie Blair O'Connor
Published Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, ©1995

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xxiii, 287 pages) : illustrations
Series Studies in health, illness, and caregiving
Publications of the American Folklore Society. New series
Studies in health, illness, and caregiving.
Publications of the American Folklore Society. New series (Unnumbered)
Contents Defining and understanding health belief systems -- Critical approaches to literature and theories -- Hmong cultural values, biomedicine, and chronic liver disease -- Vernacular health care responses to HIV and AIDS -- Implications for the health professions
Summary The popularity and practice of alternative medicine continues to expand at astonishing rates. In Healing Traditions, Bonnie Blair O'Connor considers the conflicts that arise between the values and assumptions of Western, scientific medicine and those of unconventional health systems. Providing in-depth examples of the importance and benefits of alternative health practices-including the extraordinarily extensive and sophisticated HIV/AIDS alternative therapies movement-O'Connor identifies ways to integrate alternative strategies with orthodox medical treatments in order to ensure the best possible care for patients. In spite of the long-standing prediction that, as science and medicine progressed-and education became more generally available-unconventional systems would die out, they have persisted with undiminished vitality. They have, in fact, experienced a reinvigoration and expansion during the last fifteen to twenty years. In the United States, this renewal is fueled by people representing a wide cross-section of American society, and most of them also use conventional medicine. This eclecticism can result in conflicts between the values and assumptions of Western, scientific medicine and those of unconventional health systems. O'Connor demonstrates the importance of understanding how various belief systems interact and how this interaction affects health care. She argues that through neutral observation and thorough description of health belief systems it is possible to gain an understanding of those systems, to identify likely points of conflict among systems-especially conflicts that may occur in conventional care settings-and to intervene in ways that ensure the best possible care for patients
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-279) and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
English
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Print version record
Subject Alternative medicine -- United States
AIDS (Disease) -- Alternative treatment -- United States
Hmong Americans -- Medicine
Alternative medicine.
Therapeutics, Physiological.
Complementary Therapies
Health Services Research
MEDICAL -- Alternative Medicine.
Therapeutics, Physiological.
AIDS (Disease) -- Alternative treatment.
Alternative medicine.
Hmong Americans -- Medicine.
Alternatieve geneeskunde.
Geneeskunde.
AIDS.
Middenklassen.
Hmong (volk)
Leverziekten.
SUBJECT United States
Subject United States.
Form Electronic book
LC no. 94032190
ISBN 9780812200539
0812200535
1283211009
9781283211000
9786613211002
6613211001