medical pluralism

is the coexistence of an array of medical systems in modern state societies (e.g. Biomedicine and acupuncture).

In contrast to simple preindustrial societies, which tend to exhibit a more-or-less coherent medical system, state societies manifest the coexistence of an array of medical systems, or a pattern of medical pluralism. From this perspective, the medical system of a society consist of the totality of medical subsystems that coexist in a cooperative or competitive relationship with one another. In modern industrial societies one finds, in addition to biomedicine, the dominant medical system... other systems such as chiropractic, naturopathy, Christian Science, evangelical faith healing... and various ethnomedical systems.

medical pluralism, n.All

medical pluralism