Cultural differences define diagnosis and genomic medicine practice: implications for undiagnosed diseases program in China

doi:10.1007/s11684-013-0281-3

Front Med

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Issue () : 389-394 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11684-013-0281-3

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Cultural differences define diagnosis and genomic medicine practice: implications for undiagnosed diseases program in China

Xiaohong Duan¹(

), Thomas Markello², David Adams², Camilo Toro², Cynthia Tifft², William A. Gahl², Cornelius F. Boerkoel²

1. Department of Oral Biology, Clinic of Oral Rare Diseases and Genetic Diseases, School of Stomatology, the Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an 710032, China; 2. NIH Undiagnosed Diseases Program, NIH Office of Rare Diseases Research and NHGRI, Bethesda, MD, USA

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Abstract

Despite the current acceleration and increasing leadership of Chinese genetics research, genetics and its clinical application have largely been imported to China from the Occident. Neither genetics nor the scientific reductionism underpinning its clinical application is integral to the traditional Chinese worldview. Given that disease concepts and their incumbent diagnoses are historically derived and culturally meaningful, we hypothesize that the cultural expectations of genetic diagnoses and medical genetics practice differ between the Occident and China. Specifically, we suggest that an undiagnosed diseases program in China will differ from the recently established Undiagnosed Diseases Program at the United States National Institutes of Health; a culturally sensitive concept will integrate traditional Chinese understanding of disease with the scientific reductionism of Occidental medicine.

Keywords genetics cultural differences undiagnosed diseases program

Corresponding Author(s): Duan Xiaohong,Email:xhduan@fmmu.edu.cn

Issue Date: 05 September 2013

Cite this article:

Xiaohong Duan,Thomas Markello,David Adams, et al. Cultural differences define diagnosis and genomic medicine practice: implications for undiagnosed diseases program in China[J]. Front Med, 0, (): 389-394.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fmd/EN/10.1007/s11684-013-0281-3
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fmd/EN/Y0/V/I/389

Fig.1 Annual number of articles from Chinese institutions that were published in the ten journals with the highest 5-year impact factors in the discipline of genetics and heredity (2011 JCR data).

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