Keywords
holistic approach
health definition
leprosy
medical profession
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Abstract
The World Health Organization defines health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.’ This definition promotes holistic approach towards patients. New discoveries and developments in medical science, lead to breaking up medicine into narrow specialities. New generation of health workers needs role models that are able to enhance the status of medical profession and to oppose negative consequences of fragmentation of medicine and commercialization in health sector. The author of the article proposed Dr Wanda Blenska – doctor of leprosy patients from Uganda - as a role model of holistic approach in medicine. Doctor Wanda Blenska took efforts to understand her leprosy patients and support them in all their needs. Her service not only included treatment of ‘leprosy’ as infectious disease, but also physical and psychological rehabilitation of patients, orthopaedic and cosmetic surgery, or even changing the patient’s environment to ensure their highest possible physical, mental and social well-being. Doctor Wanda Blenska left a message to the new generation of doctors: first of all, medical profession is a vocation; care for patients should be motivated by desire to relief the patients’ suffering and not only by own financial benefits; doctors should see a human being in every patient and respect and treat them in a holistic way.
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