Remodelling Medicine

This book should be of interest, as the author states, to “those who are chiefly concerned with healing and the relief of suffering.” The state of medicine is unsatisfying and due for an overhaul—a difficult premise to reject. Remodelling Medicine proposes guiding principles for the process. This is “integrative care,” with an emphasis on care. Dr Swayne does not write a prescription for remodeling medicine; instead, he offers “arguments that cannot be ignored and that will provoke lively debate.” The “biomedical model” is valuable, while inadequate by itself, to the tasks of healing and the relief of suffering. Swayne argues persuasively that we need to utilize science in “the right way,” a way that hears a patient's narrative and understands that narrative within the context of the person's entire life narrative.