Vol 36, (3) 97-192
Systems and complexity thinking in general practice - Part 1 - clinical application
Joachim P Sturmberg MBBS, MFM, PhD, FRACGP, is Honorary Associate Professor, Department of General Practice, Monash University, Melbourne, and Conjoint Associate Professor, Department of General Practice, Newcastle University, New South Wales.
Many problems encountered in general practice cannot be sufficiently explained within the Newtonian reductionist paradigm. Systems and complexity thinking – already widely adopted in most nonmedical disciplines – describes and explores the contextual nature of questions posed in medicine, and in general practice in particular. This article briefly describes the framework underpinning systems and complexity sciences. A case study illustrates how systems and complexity thinking can help to better understand the contextual nature of patient presentations, and how different approaches will lead to different outcomes.
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