How to teach holistic care--meeting the challenge of complexity in clinical practice.

CONTEXT Removal of underlying pathologies through the application of science and technology alone will not restore a patient's health; that will require connecting with the person behind the disease. Being ill changes physical and social functioning, emotional well-being, and last but not least, it affects one's self-concept. It invariably leads to questions of the meaning and understanding of being ill, hence Pauli et al. (2000) termed the notion of a somato-psycho-socio-semiotic paradigm of health. OBJECTIVE Understanding health in this context allows the conceptualization of health as a balance between these four domains. METHODS AND CONCLUSIONS This paper describes, through a systems-based methodology, the translation of the somato-psycho-socio-semiotic understanding of health into a flexible teaching approach for students and in a postgraduate setting for registrars. This teaching mode, by making the different dimensions that affect a person's health transparent, has helped learners to rapidly progress towards our goal of becoming holistically practicing clinicians.