 Other authors, notably George Engel (1977), have argued for the need to unify our understandings of mental and physical illness under a broader, biopsychosocial model. Such a model would focus clinicians to take account of both the physical, psychological, and social factors that contribute to ill health, in contrast to the traditional biomedical model which is faulted for being overly reductionistic rather than holistic. Such an account, it is claimed, would be more effective in dealing with borderline cases including people who are told they are in need of treatment due to abnormal lab results or similar but who are feeling well, as well as those who appear to have no underlying somatic disease condition but are feeling unwell. Hence this type of account does not draw any sharp distinction between the physical and the mental (or even the social), leaving the question of appropriate therapies or approaches as a matter to be decided by the doctor and his or her patient. Engel compellingly defended this type of account as more appropriate not only for clinical work but for research and teaching in medicine. It is arguable that it has implicitly (and often explicitly) been adopted in much of current-day medical practice and teaching, although it is less clear whether it has had much influence in biomedical research, much of which tends to remain more reductionistic in its nature.