Medicine is the complex of knowledge and practical activities by which we defend health and fight disease. Theoretical medicine is the set of reflections on this complex. Theoretical medicine is important in this historical period, because currently doctors must reconsider their action, their roles and their responsibilities towards both patients and society. Creative thinking is needed.The humanistic basis of medicine stems from philosophy. In my opinion medicine and philosophy must collaborate to assure a correct comprehension of the phenomenon of illness and disease, of medical reasoning, of therapeutic relationship, of medical ethics.
Theoretical medicine should be used to develop a perspectival, context-fair, and multidimensional science of actions which integrates both diversity and heterogeneity within medicine without eliminating either one.
Such a theory should employ diversity in the following areas: (1) in systems, subsystems, and professions, because different medical professions embody different health-care subsystems, thereby influencing the way manpower is utilized, (2) in actors, (e.g., patients, health-care experts, and society), processes, and situations, because each actor potentially conceptualizes health, illness, and desired outcomes differently; and (3) in models of medicine (i.e., as an object science versus an action science).