1. Medical systems based on the cultural beliefs and practices of specific ethnic groups, including alternative bodies of theory and practice; such as, traditional Chinese medicine, traditional therapies handed down from generation to generation, and various mystical or magical practices.
2. The study of the beliefs and practices concerning illness in different human populations; it observes and describes hygienic, preventive, and healing practices; also taking into account temporal and spatial references.

People who have spent their lives with ethnomedicine often feel threatened by biomedicine; especially, when a physician rejects their traditional practices resulting in those patients avoiding needed medical treatment.

The best medical care could possibly be achieved by combining biomedicine and ethnomedicine which means that an understanding of major ethnomedical concepts be understood and integrated by the physician who is dealing with the patient.