ABSTRACT
The rise of modern medicine reflects the influence of science and technology, as well as the complex array of contemporary illnesses and diseases with which it is concerned. The medical model, discussed, provides a more detailed framework for exploring the character of modern medicine. Popular academic reference to the 'medical model' is rooted in the pre-eminence of medicine in the modern world. Drawing on the sociological critiques of medicine, many working in public health have become critical of medicine and medicalization, particularly on the grounds that it separates 'conditions' from the social systems that have given rise to them. In the early decades of the twenty-first century, medicine and the organization of health care with which it is entwined, are undergoing considerable re-examination in many countries as a consequence of both economic and political imperatives.
