title: On education and research in ecological medicine (Psychosomatic medicine). Psychosomatic medicine of the year 2000.
abstract: Because advances in our field have increased the complexity of our work, I feel that the name of this discipline should be changed. I suggest a more pragmatic term, namely, Ecological Medicine. Ecological Medicine is a science relating to physiological, biological, genetic, socioeconomic, cultural, etc., changes now taking place in our cosmos. It is concerned with disease and health processes of several components of the living organism. Its task is to recognize, evaluate, prevent, and treat all the above variables which are in integral part of the disease process. I should like to stress here that the central thinking must be a strategic one: to devise and apply means, ways, and methods for the exchange of information between those working in clinical and humanistic disciplines and of those in laboratories. In other words, I, personally, believe that the research scientists, who are working in any laboratory, cannot afford to ignore the psychological, socioeconomic and cultural factors affecting people's health. Consequently, they must, on one hand, orient themselves in accordance with the above-mentioned demands, and collaborate with the scientists of the humanistic disciplines, on the other. Thus, in this way, only the anthropos can be thoroughly and completely investigated as a unique psychophysiological, socioeconomic, and cultural ecologic entity.
mesh_terms: D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D005544:Forecasting; D007396:Internship and Residency; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing; D011611:Psychosomatic Medicine / Q000193:education; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D012106:Research