Abstract

This article investigates health care professionals' concepts of health and disease and the relationship between them. In order to do so, four different models are described and analyzed: the ideal model, the holistic model, the medical model and the disjunctive model. The analysis reveals that each model has its pros and cons, and that health care professionals appear to apply more than one models. Furthermore, the models and the way health care professionals' use them may be helpful for scholars in philosophy of medicine with regard to developing theories and communicating them to health care professionals.