The proposed research explores the ways in which principles of holistic medicine are integrated into traditional biomedical settings, and describes the way in which the integrated practice of medicine is operationalized on a daily basis in a clinical environment. Then two fundamentally different systems based on contrasting theories of disease etiology merge into a single clinical setting, physicians in that practice are challenged to integrate their traditional biomedical training with oftentimes opposing aspects of holistic medicine. This ethnographic research investigates medical pluralism, or multiple forms of health care, in the U.S. medical community through a focus on the allopathically trained physicians? creation of treatment rationales that integrate a holistic perspective. In addition, through the analysis of discourse, the intended research will illuminate the etiological and epistemological foundations of the practice of holistic medicine within the boundaries of the larger biomedical system The research will result in the description of a clinical environment that integrates biomedical and holistic medicine.
