To what extent has the 'Biomedical Model' been challenged by recent developments in the thinking about the body, health and medicine.

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To what extent has the 'Biomedical Model' been challenged by recent developments in the thinking about the body, health and medicine.

The most dominant paradigm view in Modern Western medicine of health illness held by many official health practitioners such as doctors, consultants, and surgeons has been labelled the 'biomedical approach' or by some as the 'medical model'. Throughout the history of Western science, the development of biology has gone hand in hand with that of medicine. Biomedicine was born in the age of scientific revolution of the 17th century however this view did not gain prominence in Britain until the 19th century. The biomedical model assumes that bacteria, a faulty gene, a virus or an accident such as falling down the stairs causes an illness. Furthermore that illness is the result of an identifiable cause. Conversely it is not the result of an evil spirit or curse.

Illness can be identified and classified into different types for example diseases of the nervous system, respiratory diseases and chronic diseases. This whole process of identifying and classifying is viewed as that of an objective nature that has created very little disagreement amongst the medical profession. In addition medical officials