ABSTRACT
Medical generalism is the expertise of whole person medicine. In this opening chapter, I present the core principles of whole person healthcare – the building blocks that underpin the ideas in this book. I describe five principles of advanced generalist practice: (1) its purpose, to create a whole person understanding of illness; (2) its focus on understanding the self who we are caring for; (3) its goal to enhance health as resource people need and use for daily living; (4) the work of whole person medicine, being the wisdom to create understanding in context; and (5) the context in which this work happens as the complex intervention that is primary healthcare. The common thread through all of these is knowledge work.
