Reflections: turn toward wellness--what remains to be done?

Abstract

A hypothetical visit by a figure who represents the ideals of Hippocratic Naturalistic Medicine is used as a strategy to enable the reader to examine certain aspects of the issue of wellness. As the invited guest speaker before and imaginary gathering or convention of health professionals, this mythic figure represents a wellness ideal against which the current state of the "wellness approach" to health care can be critically examined. Where has the wellness orientation made progress, where has it gotten bogged down, and where must it ultimately go? Though the spirit of the wellness orientation to human health has obviously made enormous progress in the past few decades there still remains much to be done. This quasi philosophical discussion represents an attempt to critically examine some of the areas which the wellness orientation must begin to address.