How do Family Doctors Cure, Resolve, and Treat?

Abstract

The usual biomedical approach to "cure" is to consider that the family doctor does it by means of drugs, usually has a quantitative meaning ("90% cases are resolved ..."), and it is considered dichotomous (cure-yes/no). But, the sense of healing/resolution is qualitative and occurs in a non-dichotomous continuum. Many diseases in Family Medicine are self-limited or have no cure, so it can be assumed that many of the medical pharmacological treatments are useless. The concept of healing or resolution should be seen in Family Medicine as facilitating the unlocking of a situation, change or move from one setting to another. It is the result of the action that gives rise to a new scenario. Healing takes place through the encounter of a person with other people (healing is a "relational" concept, of adjustment or change in the matrix of relationships or connections), rather than through interventions in the body or mind of the individual isolated. Healing involves in one way or another return of the part to the whole.