Troubled Healthcare, Another Medicine, and True Life: The Embodied Onto-epistemology and Ethics of Chamsalee

This text diagnoses the dualism of mind and body, as well as the separation of knowing and living, which are the ontological foundations of modern biomedicine, as the root causes of the medical turmoil currently occurring in South Korea in June 2024. The ongoing debate over the number of medical professionals is comparable to the reckless behavior of a quack who applies unproven treatments without an accurate diagnosis of the disease. Trapped within the economic framework of supply and demand for medical personnel, there has been a complete lack of reflection on the purposes and goals of medicine and healthcare. As a result, values such as empathy and trust, which should be fundamental between patients and doctors, have been neglected, leading to rampant over-treatment aimed at maximizing profit from patients. The current situation stems from focusing solely on the supply and demand of medical personnel while accepting the structures of trust loss and over-treatment as given. Professionalism and elitism, which have developed within such structures but failed to adapt to changing environments, further complicate the problem. The text argues that we must start again with a philosophical reflection on modern biomedicine, which separates mind and body and emphasizes abstract knowledge over the vivid experiences of life. It suggests understanding the body and mind as an inseparable process and considering concrete, material, and vivid life realized within the body rather than abstract knowledge and life. Furthermore, the text points out the limitations of medical humanities and health humanities, which have sought solutions centered on individual humans rather than real vivid and social life, and proposes the body-centric approach of posthumanism as a new medical paradigm. This approach reconsiders the essence of healthcare services and suggests a new understanding of the unique characteristics and emergent phenomena of various collections of bodies (-omes). Through research on the placebo effect, it emphasizes that empathy and trust between healthcare providers and patients are essential factors in medical relationships and advocates for a solidarity of healing rather than mere disease treatment. To achieve this, the text introduces ‘Chamsalee’ as a new norm for the body and clinical practice. While traditional well-being presupposes a harmonious and perfect state of the body, Chamsalee accepts an imperfect and precarious balance as a natural reality. If well-being is the state of being of the body, Chamsalee is the process of life striving to solve given problems. By adopting Chamsalee as the new norm for medical relationships, it is possible to restore the solidarity of healing based on empathy and trust, thereby creating a new opportunity for problem-solving.