Tag: CauseHealth project

WHAT NEXT? Reality-testing systemic resistance towards treating the whole person, the unique patient

Brian Broom, immunologist, psychotherapist and CauseHealth senior advisor

Most Western clinicians who pursue a person-centred approach to physical illness experience significant resistance from colleagues and health institutions. At first glance this may seem strange. Wouldn’t everybody want to be person-centred and oriented to the unique patient? Isn’t it obvious that the appearance and development of disease is commonly multi-causal and multidimensional? Surely anyone can see that disease is a manifestation or representation within, and of, the ‘whole’, whether that ‘whole’ is the presenting individual, or a bigger ‘whole’, such as family or culture. But life is not so simple. (This blog post is an extract. Read the long text here.)

Continue reading “WHAT NEXT? Reality-testing systemic resistance towards treating the whole person, the unique patient”

Open access CauseHealth resource for clinicians

A multidisciplinary book dealing with the philosophical biases that tacitly motivate evidence based and person centered clinical practice.

Short presentation video

Access and download the book for free on the Springer webpage.

Long presentation video

Evidence based medicine. What evidence, whose medicine, and on what basis?

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Rani Lill Anjum

The evidence-based medicine movement was intended as a methodological revolution. Its proponents suggested the best way to establish the effectiveness of treatment and new criteria to choose between available treatments without bias. Philosophically, however, these changes were not so innocent, at least not ontologically speaking. In bringing itself closer to science, medicine has become less suitable for dealing with complex illnesses, individual variations and, as I will argue, with causation in general. Continue reading “Evidence based medicine. What evidence, whose medicine, and on what basis?”

CauseHealth workshop N=1 is now a section in JECP special issue.

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The Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice has dedicated a section of its latest special issue to collect seven contributions which were previously presented in the CauseHealth workshop N=1. A further contribution from the same workshop was published by the same journal last year. Continue reading “CauseHealth workshop N=1 is now a section in JECP special issue.”

#CauseHealthPT Holds Court: The Beginning of The Beginning

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By Roger Kerry

How and why has this philosophy project got itself so involved with physiotherapy? The background to the CauseHealth project is essentially that the world of health care is not straightforward, and indeed is characterised by complexity and context-sensitivity. Physiotherapy is a profession where these characteristics are easily visible, and so serves as a great ‘testing ground’ for the philosophical work being done by CauseHealth. This in turn helps the project better understand its ideas. In doing this, physiotherapy itself gets a deep and critical understanding of the job it does, and of the scientific research which informs it. We are now symbiotic! Continue reading “#CauseHealthPT Holds Court: The Beginning of The Beginning”

Why do we care about the foundations of evidence-based medicine (“EBM”)?

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Photo via Latvian Ethnographic Open Air Museum

by Samantha Copeland

CauseHealth has been pushing buttons all over the place, lately, as we pursue our goal of critiquing current frameworks in EBM by proposing some deep questions about its ontology*. We aren’t the only ones—at recent events, we have found people from various communities in medicine are ready and willing to raise and engage some tough questions, about what evidence is and how it might best be used. Reflecting on two recent events we attended, in this blog post I want to think a little bit about the relationship between understanding the foundations of EBM, and putting the ideals of EBM to work for us in medical practice. Continue reading “Why do we care about the foundations of evidence-based medicine (“EBM”)?”

The CauseHealth and Trinity workshop “N=1 – causal reasoning in clinical practice”

by Elena Rocca

The workshop “N=1 – causal reasoning in clinical practice” was a perfect start of the new year for the CauseHealth friends. On the 12th of January the NMBU University campus in Ås welcomed us with a beautiful snowy landscape, and authentic Norwegian winter. Continue reading “The CauseHealth and Trinity workshop “N=1 – causal reasoning in clinical practice””

The first CauseHealth meeting

By Samantha Copeland

This CauseHealth network meeting brought together philosophers, medical practitioners and researchers in the health sciences to share their perspectives on human health and illness. Read about the first meeting in their guest editorial for the European Journal for Person Centered Healthcare. Continue reading “The first CauseHealth meeting”

Can medicine explain medically unexplained symptoms?

By Elisa Arnaudo

Medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) represent a major challenge for healthcare systems in industrialised countries. These symptoms are so prevalent that they are assessed in up to 50% of consultations in primary care. The repeated referral of these patients to secondary care represents a substantial cost, but not a resolution of the symptoms which often remain unexplained. Continue reading “Can medicine explain medically unexplained symptoms?”