Raymond Downing – författare

This book contains a forword by Ron Pust, Professor of Family Medicine, University of Arizona, USA. Written by a practicing physician with 30 years experience both in America and Africa, "Suffering and Healing in America" takes a critical look at Western health care and examines its weaknesses. With a thought provoking rather than prescriptive approach, this extraordinary book offers a new reasoning in health care: learning from history and traditional cultures. "Suffering and Healing in America" will be of great interest to all health care professionals and researchers with an interest in public health. Religious and spiritual leaders will find this book a source of inspiration, and policy makers and shapers worldwide will find plenty to inform and guide their thoughts on the future of health care in America and beyond. ''It doesn''t matter whether you are a provider or a consumer of health care, whether in the USA or outside, this book continues to draw keenly reflective cultural insights to challenge us all. America has money and science, but we may have abandoned the spiritual and social context of our lives and deaths. In Africa, and in many other places on our planet, it is quite the opposite. I invite you to explore these contrasts with Ray Downing. This book''s lessons have much to teach us.'' - Ron Pust, in the Foreword.

This book contains a forword by Ron Pust, Professor of Family Medicine, University of Arizona, USA. Written by a practicing physician with 30 years experience both in America and Africa, "Suffering and Healing in America" takes a critical look at Western health care and examines its weaknesses. With a thought provoking rather than prescriptive approach, this extraordinary book offers a new reasoning in health care: learning from history and traditional cultures. "Suffering and Healing in America" will be of great interest to all health care professionals and researchers with an interest in public health. Religious and spiritual leaders will find this book a source of inspiration, and policy makers and shapers worldwide will find plenty to inform and guide their thoughts on the future of health care in America and beyond. ''It doesn''t matter whether you are a provider or a consumer of health care, whether in the USA or outside, this book continues to draw keenly reflective cultural insights to challenge us all. America has money and science, but we may have abandoned the spiritual and social context of our lives and deaths. In Africa, and in many other places on our planet, it is quite the opposite. I invite you to explore these contrasts with Ray Downing. This book''s lessons have much to teach us.'' - Ron Pust, in the Foreword.

The development of modern medicine is on a very steep trajectory upward--a rise that began only about a hundred years ago. This rise is certainly quantitative, but it is accompanied by qualitative changes in the way we understand and deliver healthcare. This book begins with a look at three recognized periods of medical development--from 1900 until World War II, from the war until about 1980, and the period since 1980.While the common response is to celebrate these developments, this book suggests that perhaps we should also be wary, especially of the qualitative changes. Since World War II, these medical developments have entered more and more areas of our lives. It is precisely this process of medicalization that should be critically examined. Since 1980 we have medicalized life itself. Drawing from medical sociology, the book examines four characteristics of contemporary Western health care: health as a system, risk as a means of understanding health, health as a commodity, and individual responsibility for health. Critical examination of these four tendencies in contemporary health care forms the core of the argument of this important book about the essence of biohealth and medical practice.

Family physician Raymond Downing offers a bold critique of western medicine and sees medical care as one of the fallen "e;principalities and powers"e; in need of redemption. But Downing's hope lies beyond biomedicine--in biblical healing, especially the healing miracles of Jesus. In conversation with the Bible, Ivan Illich, William Stringfellow, Susan Sontag, and others, Downing revisits how Westerners approach medicine. He sees suffering and healing as essentially spiritual experiences at the roots of death and life.

This book contains a forword by Ron Pust, Professor of Family Medicine, University of Arizona, USA. Written by a practicing physician with 30 years experience both in America and Africa, "Suffering and Healing in America" takes a critical look at Western health care and examines its weaknesses. With a thought provoking rather than prescriptive approach, this extraordinary book offers a new reasoning in health care: learning from history and traditional cultures. "Suffering and Healing in America" will be of great interest to all health care professionals and researchers with an interest in public health. Religious and spiritual leaders will find this book a source of inspiration, and policy makers and shapers worldwide will find plenty to inform and guide their thoughts on the future of health care in America and beyond. 'It doesn't matter whether you are a provider or a consumer of health care, whether in the USA or outside, this book continues to draw keenly reflective cultural insights to challenge us all. America has money and science, but we may have abandoned the spiritual and social context of our lives and deaths. In Africa, and in many other places on our planet, it is quite the opposite. I invite you to explore these contrasts with Ray Downing. This book's lessons have much to teach us.' - Ron Pust, in the Foreword.