Introduction: The Meaning Making Processes of Healthcare Relationship in the Current Scenario

Medicine, from a general and wide-ranging point of view, is a therapeutic activity based on a system of knowledge and practice, locally and historically connoted (Beneduce & Roudinesco, 2005; Federspil et al., 2008; Good, 1994; Kleinmann, 1998). It changes over time. On the one hand, we see the transformation of medicine over its subjects, and on the other hand, we see the transformations of medicine in the relationship between its agents (doctors, patients, researchers, educational and research institutions, etc.). Therefore, the evolution and transformation of medicine and its progress do not pertain exclusively to the relationship it builds with its specific subjects (think of the increasingly precise definition of diseases and research for increasingly more effective and efficient therapeutic treatments); the change of medicine over time also has a side we call relational, and it is built through the methods of organizing relations amongst its participants. In the valuable contributions of this book, attention focuses mainly on that transformative side of medicine, given that the current cultural and social processes within Westernized societies raise questions with regard to medicine and the ways it carries out its practices. The transformation of medical practice within the current social and cultural landscapes of the Westernized societies puts an emphasis on the issue of the medical relationship between the doctor and the patient.