Reductionism was the major scientific view before world war II, its development leads to industrial revolution and modern medicine. Traditional medicine like Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurvedic Medicine, Homeopathy, Naturopathy, and Western Herbal Medicine was then considered as alternative medicine because they are seem incompatible with reductionism and allopathic medicine. However, reductionism was found to be a incomplete scientific view after world war II and a more holistic scientific view was developed namely system theory.Systemic thinking is to consider both the system and the environment when analyzing or maintaining a system, or its environment. When analyzing a particular component within a system, all other components should be considered as well.

Traditional medicine has been analyzed with the incomplete scientific theory for logical explanations about its medical theory and practice, resulting in confusion and misunderstanding. Papers or discussions which will demonstrate the application of system theory to investigate the holistic nature of any kind of traditional or alternative medicine are welcome for us to better understood medicine.

Presentation Format: 15-20 minutes presentation, 10 minutes questions

Modern medicine was developed through reductionism. Papers or discussions which will demonstrate the applications of system theory to investigate the holistic nature of any part of modern medicine are welcome. This may involve any medical or healthcare problems, departments, programs, organizations or personnels.

Papers: http://www.ec-balance.org/edu/isss/index.html 

ISSS SIG: http://projects.isss.org/sig_on_health_and_systems_thinking 

#isss