Leininger's Model

No Panaceas

Much of Western medicine is predicated on the idea that a cure that works for one person should work for everyone else. If penicillin or measles vaccinations work on one patient or one set of patients then they should -- after have been through a thorough vetting process -- be able to work reliably with other patients. This is central to the most basic scientific model: One of the core aspects of science is that knowledge is generalizable and transferable. The scientist, and others like her, do not have to reinvent the wheel each time a person comes down with a strep throat: What has worked before will work again in predictable ways.

And the above is in many ways true: The human body does respond in relatively predictable ways to a range of medical interventions. But it is also true that there are non-physiological aspects...
[ View Full Essay]