Kinsley describes ontological as a disease process that is different or separate from the individual’s body (1996:170). To me this would be considered something along the lines of bacterial or viral infections that invade the body causing harm and sickness to the patient. Kinsley views the medical system with all its technology and gadgets as mechanical in nature, separating itself from the emotional, spiritual, and cultural aspects of healing. The body is broken up into parts, organ systems like a car. A car has the engine, transmission, radiator (cooling system), wheels, electrical system, and frame just to name a few. In comparison the human body can be broken down into the gastrointestinal system (stomach and bowels), endocrine system (hormone regulation), cardiac (heart), pulmonary (lungs), and renal (kidneys) just to name …show more content…
Hahn (1995:38) describes biomedicine as the study and approach of illnesses and healing using scientific methods. Dr. Alex Perry describes modern medicine, western medicine, or biomedicine as an upstream approach to finding the causing of this illness or disruption of body chemistry. By first completing a series of lab test and diagnostic test the overall reason for the illness is found, once this disruption is cured or regulated, this causes a downstream effect and the signs and symptoms of the disease process subside. Pamela Erickson describes biomedicine as curing the disease process within the body by removal or destruction of unwanted organisms in her video presentation “The Healing Lessons of Ethnomedicine”