ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a historical overview of the main influences that shaped and informed the current accepted medical model. It describes the current manifestation of that model, enshrined in the principles of evidence-based medicine (EBM) and, by presenting a brief critique of EBM, begins to unpick the features of a different, complementary way of thinking, whose intellectual pathway has yielded the principles of qualitative research. Rational scientific progress in medicine seemed unstoppable, exciting discoveries peppered the medical landscape, and the status of the medical professions seemed unassailable. Ancient Greece is generally regarded as the home of medicine, whose point of origin is commonly identified in the writings of the Hippocratic collection. Clinical medicine, Greaves argues, 'aimed to be a science, hinging on clinical detachment where empirical data were acquired through relentless examination of pathological lesions.' Medical knowledge could henceforth only be determined by doctors, and progress would now only be linked to developments in science.
