Medical care, as currently defined in the developed, westernized world, is a system of diagnosis and treatment based on scientific investigation, a detailed history of the patient's symptoms, examination of that patient and development of a rational treatment plan. The true roots of medicine, from the Greek and Arabian schools, were holistic, as they incorporated everything deemed pertinent to the patient's illness, from family structure to diet, physical condition and so on. Modern medical practice does strive to use the advances produced by scientific study and research techniques but where I see a failing is in the tight and often rigid mindset that is quite unscientific. We doctors are trained to believe we have the only true route to healing and that simply is not true, any more than any given religion has solid claim to the title. It is true that antibiotics, properly used, can save lives that in an earlier time would be lost.
Surgical techniques can repair hearts and livers and damaged extremities.
The weakness of the model is in the lack of appreciation for other methods that might help the physician expand his or her bag of tricks. American doctors dismissed out of hand any notion that acupuncture might actually work, or that various herbs might offer relief from distress and help keep folks healthy, until the evidence proved overwhelming. Even so, wellness and good health don't fit comfortably in the current model. You either go to the doctor with an illness or you will do so eventually, so far as the model is concerned. We physicians simply do not get the training as yet in matters of real prevention, real wellness and so on.