Hahn (1995:15-18) discusses three different societies of nosology: Subanun, Ndembu, and biomedicine in western society. These are three very different culturally diverse groups and each poses its own complications and distinctive means for dealing with and understanding sicknesses, illnesses, and disease processes. Health care providers should always be aware of the cultural differences within their region of practice, not every culture views medicine, sicknesses, and healing the same. …show more content…
This cultural group has no titled medically trained physician or healer, they rely on their own knowledge of sicknesses and those in their group, relatives and neighbors for help during their illness and treatment options. Hahn (1995:16) refers to Charles Frake (1961), an anthropologist with great personal knowledge of the Subanun nosology found 186 different diagnoses within this cultural group. Frake was able to group these diagnoses into four different classifications. Category one is based on presentation of symptoms, two is the cause of the illness, three is based on the symptoms that preceded the illness, and forth is distinguished according to the cause of the sickness. Each category and diagnosis has its own set of herbal treatments and ritual offering to supernatural beings. It is important for medical …show more content…
This type of medicine or nosology is based on medical knowledge and research. Hahn (1995:17) describes this type of medicine as “rational and systematic”, with a complex coding system known as the International Classification of Diseases or ICD-9 (World Health Organization 1978). This system has codes designated for most medical conditions, illnesses, and symptoms from depression to HIV. These codes are used to categorize different medical diagnosis, pair them with different medical treatments, and is a set of guidelines used for medial reimbursement. If a patient is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis the code is 340, this code is used by medical providers to obtain reimbursement for medical therapies and treatments. I have many patients with this diagnosis that receive different types of Intravenous medicine infusions on a regular basis, if this code is not properly documented, the hospital I work for does not get reimbursed for the medication (which can be very expensive) or infusion therapy bill. Due to the complexities and new medical diagnosis ICD-9 is outdated and is undergoing revisions. The revised coding system ICD-10 is currently being put into place and will be go into effect next year 2013. This coding system uses both letters and numbers to identify different medical diagnosis and symptoms. As Hahn (1995:18) has difficulty understanding the complexities of the