Monologue or Intercultural Dialogue Between Medical Systems? An Educational Challenge for Medical Sciences

Each medical cultural system constructs knowledge about health through specialization or interculturalism. The knowledge constructed through interculturalism has sought, mainly, to adapt the delivery of health care services to the users’ cultural referents. This emphasis has overlooked the opportunities embedded in the establishment of intercultural relationships between medical systems based on dialogue, especially in regard to the adjustment of the disciplinary boundaries of medical cultural systems that would allow the construction of new knowledge on health. This absence of dialogue has been determined by epistemological barriers inherent to every system as well as by social domination. This article presents some concepts related to cognition processes which encourage the reflection on the possibilities to overcome such barriers so that the health sciences may contribute to the effective implementation of the World Health Organization and the State’s recommendations on the matter.

Hans Jürgen Eysenck. Life and work of one of the most infl uential scientist in the history of psychology

On this article, the biography and work of one of the most influential scientists in psychology history is briefl y introduced. With his work, he laid the bases for the scientific study not only on personality, but also on human behaviour. Hence, the most important contributions done by this author are highlighted in a wide range of areas of our discipline, as well as the vision he had about how psychology should be as a science. A series of considerations related to the current situation of scientific psychology in Argentina, lead us to the conclusion that it is essential to rescue his work from forgetfulness, apart from going back over some of his lines of research and thoughts. 

Quality of life and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

The Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) has a progressive and irreversible character and it’s associated to the triad of dyspnea, exercise limitation and the evident deterioration of quality of life. In the United States the prevalence of COPD in adult population is approximately of 6% in men, and 1 to 3% in women and it’s the fourth cause of mortality by no transmissible chronic diseases. In 1993, the National Health Interview Surgery considered that 12 millions of Americans suffer from chronic bronchitis and 2 million had emphysema. These two affections are responsible for more than 13% of the hospitalizations. As this affection progresses, patients experience a diminution in quality of life related to health (CVRS), their capacity to work get worse and their participation in physical and social activities reduces. Nevertheless, it has been confirmed that the isolated evaluation of COPD seriousness, defined by the reduction of the Forced Expiratory Volume in the First Second (FEV1), does not provide enough information to know the health state perceived by the patients. The fact that the CVRS is the result of the interaction of multiple physical, psychological and social factors, unique for each individual, can explain this finding. This paper is a general and updated approach to the integral handling of patients with COPD, and it discusses the concept of quality of life, related to health improvement.