Think about integrative medicine and the thought that comes to the mind is, "Mixing cow pie with apple pie does not guarantee a tastier cow pie, but does guarantee a stale apple pie."Most articles about CAM start with how popular these alternative medicines and therapies have become over the years. This is usually followed by a claim of the seemingly large percentage of population that uses several CAM approaches, ranging from exercise and nutrition to prayer and spirituality, these days. These articles usually emphasize one point, if everyone is moving towards CAM, there must be something interesting about it.Articles about CAM also urge individuals to join the group, citing reasons like modern medicine, impersonal attention and a complicated health care system.
These reasons, they say, are more than enough for individuals to opt for integrative medicine. They claim that integrative medicine would help reduce healthcare costs, improve outcomes and safety, and increase patient satisfaction in the long run.However, one cannot withdraw from conventional medicines just because it is impersonal or confusing. While this would be hard to maintain in a critical healthcare system, reintroducing a human element of caring would help improve the efficacy of conventional medicines without necessarily adding complementary and alternative medicine.Claims that CAM would transform the healthcare industry are true. However, the transformation would be for the worse and include injecting mystical faith based healing techniques, homeopathy, naturopathy and Chinese medicine into standard healthcare practices. While CAM followers advocate that this would humanize medicine, others feel it would deteriorate the quality of conventional medicines and their effects on the human body.Many define integrative medicine as something that would reaffirm the relationship between patients and their practitioners. However, it is not necessary for one to include CAM into conventional medicine in order to achieve this. Yet CAM uses the same dichotomy to paint those who follow conventional medicine as being uncaring towards patients and more interested in science.Conventional medicine practitioners believe that this interest in science actually makes them more interested in their patient's welfare.
Therefore, while integrative medicine focuses on joint decision making by the patient and physician with regard to medications and therapies, others claim that there is no need to move away from science based medicine for the same reason. There are plenty of doctors following SMB who advocate joint decision making these days as well.Another potential card CAM plays in its argument is the introduction of integrative medicine programs in an increasing number of academic medical institutions today. Students in these centers are taught a variety of CAM approaches in conjunction with standard conventional approaches. Separate integrative medicine curriculum introduced in these centers focus on topics like nutrition, supplements, herbal alternatives, mind-body therapies, alternative therapies and lifestyle medicine. One cannot imagine how doctors would infuse these medicines and therapies with conventional ones in the treatment of individuals, especially children.
