CONVENTIONAL AND NON-CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE IN MODERN LITHUANIA: THE PATIENT'S EXPERIENCES
Keywords:
медицинская антропология, неконвенциональная медицина, альтернативная медицина, конвенциональная медицина, прикладная антропология, социокультурное конструирование «здоровья», паттерны и модели профессиональных отношений, публичные знания в области здоровья и здравоохраненияAbstract
The article focuses on studying basic causes that encourage persons to rely on unconventional medicine more than modern biomedicine. The author tries to answer the questions: why are patients disenchanted with traditional medicine; how do patients understand the very condition of "health"; what are the dominant individual beliefs about "unconventional", or "alternative healing"? The article studies the communicative aspect in the medical system: mutual trust, understanding, or misunderstanding (as well as, possibly, mistrust) between doctors and patients. Based on patients' empirical experience, the author tries to actualize and reveal how anthropological research could serve as a mediator between the "old" and "new" knowledge and how these could be applied in health care.
