Taylor and Field (2007) argued that those in the medical profession use the bio-medical model to help diagnosis the body and to help in intervening the body from getting diseases. Furthermore Sheeran (1995) says that there has been an increasingly successful practical application of the principles of medical knowledge in the West, where the bio-medical figure is mostly upheld.
However, Illich (2002) claims that medicine in the contemporary world, does more harm than good for us. He calls this iatrogenesis, meaning doctor caused Illnesses, and he argues that the medical world is enhancing the spread of illnesses and disease instead of culling it.
Health sociologist criticise the definition of health used by the bio-medical model as failing to recognise the link between health and illness. McKeon challenges the bio-medical method and says that it is spending too much money on the treatment and research into drugs that treat the disease instead of spending money in trying to prevent individuals from becoming ill. He researched that the decline in mortality in the west was not completely linked to the fact that we have better medicine but rather our immune system is getting stronger, as we now have better nutrition and are more hygienic.
On the other hand, Ben Goldacre fights back and champions the bio-medical model in his book Bad science (2008). He says that unlike alternative medicine, the bio-medical model is reviewed, transparent, objective and stands up to scrutiny. He says ‘to flippantly criticise the bio medical model is wreck less’.
Hardey (1998) argues against this point and says that in fact there is a decline in the uncritical acceptance of the authority of professionals in the medical field. He says that people nowadays are more obedient are less likely to do what they are told to do as so was the case in the past. He continues to say that people are more likely to question the medical requests that they are given and give themselves a diagnosis rather than following the doctor’s advice.
The view of the bio-medical model is upheld by most of the leading and successful medical workers in the world showing that it must be the right way forward as it has advanced human life on the world. It dominates health practices in the U.K and it is the traditional model of health.
However the social model argues that the biomedical model ignores the individuals opinion on what is making them ill, even when they are faced with the clinical iceberg. They suggest that a lay person’s (public person or one not of the medical profession) opinion to illness should be equal to those in the medical field as the lay person is the one experiencing it. Foucault (1973) said that the medical profession gained dominance over health by creating and controlling a new scientific language to describe the body which gives them a professional status over the lay person.
In argument against this, the medical profession states that as a result of many years of study into how the human body works, those in the medical profession are better equipped with knowledge than an ordinary person might be in terms of medicine so therefore they have, in a way earned or achieved the right to be higher to a lay person in that respect.
In conclusion, there are many criticisms against the bio-medical model that are very valid and are supported by many solid arguments. On the other hand the bio-medical model has years of experience and trial in its hand as well as many experiments to see if it does in fact benefit the personal interest of an individual and the public in the end.
The points fairly match each other but in some cases they outmatch each other. In my opinion, if the two models collaborated together they would make even better health care and many of the problems that lead to illnesses and disease would be solved. I also feel that valuable time and people’s intelligence s being put to work to find reasons to argue against the opposing models, whereas they should be spending their time, money and knowledge into developing drugs and methods into helping those who they claim the opposing model is oppressing. In simple words there is a balance to both views and ideologies.
Nathaniel Opoku-Mensah Sociology As
Monday, 08 October 2012