At age 59, Russell Stone, an African-American male, believes his health is rapidly failing him and blames most of it on getting old. He has good health insurance—both through his employer and as a military veteran—but is dealing with “blood issues and prostate issues” that are possibly related to having high blood pressure and cholesterol, although his doctors are unable to come up with a specific diagnosis or treatment plan. Russell is worried and frustrated; he knows it is common for people to die before they “make it through their 50s.” His brother died at an early age of prostate cancer, and he is concerned that it could happen to him:

Examined from a medical perspective, Russell's health complaints and inability to have them effectively addressed by doctors is not that unusual. Doctors are often confronted with patients who have an array of ambiguous and fleeting symptoms that defy easy diagnosis, especially when the patient has co-morbidities. Even major chronic illnesses, like multiple sclerosis, can be difficult to diagnose in their early stages. Moreover, most health care professionals these days understand that social factors, such as personal and family relationships, economic hardships, and stressful living conditions can have an adverse effect on the health of their patients, but what can they do about that? Physicians are trained to deal with medical events rather than the life situations that foster them; they simply lack the time, resources, and often interest to deal with the social context of illness.

In recent years the appeal of the biomedical model of illness, the foundation of scientific medicine and the modern health care system, has diminished.