Internationale Zeitschrift für globale Gesundheit

The Concept of Co-Treatment or Ecological Treatment in General Medicine

Jose Luis Turabian

Family Medicine/General Medicine should include therapeutic interventions in the sense of ‘co-development and co-treatment’: there are not isolated individuals, but in reference to others, in relation to others. As Lichens which are formed by two components or two organisms living in symbiosis, on the one hand are the hyphae of the fungus that can not produce their food and on the other hand the cells of algae which give the food to fungus; so, fungus protects the alga, and because of that, the lichens can resist in environments where each alone could not. Survival is achieved not by competition but in collaboration with symbiosis. You can not treat cases of illness that people present considering them in isolation from each other and without consider the context to which they belong. We have to turn our attention to the circumstances of the home and to the consideration of man in his family, work and community context.