[Martin Heidegger, beneficence, health, and evidence based medicine--contemplations regarding ethics and complementary and alternative medicine].

Beneficence is considered a core principle of medical ethics. Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) is used almost synonymously with beneficence and has become the gold standard of efficiency of conventional medicine. Conventional modern medicine and EBM in particular are based on what Heidegger called calculative thinking, whereas complementary medicine (CM) is often based on contemplative thinking according to Heidegger's distinction of different thinking processes. A central issue of beneficence is the striving for health and wellbeing. EBM is little concerned directly with wellbeing, though it does claim to aim at improving quality of life by correcting pathological processes and conditions like infectious diseases, ischemic heart disease but also hypertension and hyperlipidemia. On the other hand, wellbeing is central to therapeutic efforts of CM. Scientific methods to gauge results of EBM are quantitative and based on calculative thinking, while results of treatments with CM are expressed in a qualitative way and based on meditative thinking. In order to maximize beneficence it seems important and feasible to use both approaches, by combining EBM and CM in the best interest of the individual patient.