Critically evaluate claims that there has been a transformation in the Essay

Critically evaluate claims that there has been a transformation in the character of biomedicine and the emergence of a new paradigm for health care at the start - Essay Example e used in order to explain the development of health and illness within a particular society or among a specific part of the population (using as criteria the gender, the ethnicity and so on). From a different point of view, it is suggested by Eisenberg (1977) that disease is a different concept from illness. In fact it is stated that disease could be better described using the following description: ‘physicians diagnose and treat ‘diseases’’ (Eisenberg, 1977, 11) whereas ‘†¦ patients suffer ‘illnesses’’ (Eisenberg, 1977, 11). On the other hand, in accordance with a study of Helman published by Ember et al. (2004, 733) ‘traditional classification of illness can be divided into four classes: natural, supernatural, personal and social’. In other words, health is closely related with the social and cultural characteristics of a specific society. The level of technology developed within the particular society could be also regarded as having a significant impact on the health conditions of the specific population. Under these terms, the development of biomedical model of disease/ health can help in order to understand all the aspects of health and disease within a particular society or in relation with a specific part for the population (gender, race and class inequalities could be observed in this case regarding the level of health provided to people within a specific state). The main characteristic of biomedical model of disease/ health is the fact that the above model regards health as the absence of disease. In this context, all theories referring to the relationship between health and disease could be equally applied in order to examine the credibility of this model in all its aspects. In accordance with the study of Turner (1987, 9, in [2]) ‘the model assumes that all human dysfunction might eventually be traced to such specific causal mechanisms within the organism and it presupposes a clear mind/body distinction where ultimately the