It was interesting to note an article in the Minot Daily put out by Trinity Hospital on "An Inside View on Integrative Medicine". I have published numerous posts in the past on integrative medicine. Dr. Madziwa and internist, originally from Zimbabwe, did a fellowship at the University of Arizona. This is Andrew Weils home base. I have visited the site and talked to faculty at that site. It is interesting to see her comments in the article. Like all integrative medicine people say that it is about love, balance, holistic, and that traditional evidence based medicine did not make them people well, the whole person. A lot of fuzzy, poorly defined terminology here. She also stated that "a human being will remain unsettled if the other to pillars, mental and spiritual, are not adequately addressed". Then goes on with other modalities in the so called tool box of integrative medicine, like tai-chi, acupuncture, energy medicine, herbal medicine etc. Then the gotcha that they always bring up that is based more on philosophy than science or evidence; "The strength to do what is right can totally be a mental thing when we use our will power. Will power is a mental drain, and the minute we let go of our guard, everything else seems to break loose. But when we are grounded in a higher power, which for me is God, we are grounded in the power of love." What in the world does all those words mean. Yeah thinking can be hard and draining, so lets stop thinking? God will cure everything? The integrative medicine people by their very nature are more into woo, spirits and the like. It may be due to how they were brought up as some recent psychology research indicates. One problem we have in modern medicine is that in the short 150 year history of it we have gotten so good that people expect results immediately, and when they don't get it they think it is not working and turn to so called alternative medicine. What I have seen and is based on solid research, which cannot be said of alternative medicine, of evolutionary medicine is that around 80% of everyday health problems will get better, no matter what we do. One thing they, the integrative medicine bunch, got right is that the body does have a remarkable ability to heal itself, it is innate in our evolutionary history, not spiritual. What we must do is be on the look out for disease that will not heal themselves and diagnose and treat them, that is our primary function. The problem with integrative and alternative medicine is that people go to this options when the result will be disability or death when they could have gotten real help. Underline REAL, and that is not the world that integrative and alternative medicine people operate in. If you want examples go to Tim Farley's "Whatstheharm.com" where real cases with reference are brought up and you can see for yourself, don't take my word for it. I have seen enough people now who have gone to alternative practitioners and come back, upset that they are not healed by them either. These people main problem is more psychological than real anyway. Our primary purpose on these people is to keep them out of the hospital for imagined illness and not do so many diagnostic tests on them in a wild goose chase that they have to have transfusions for all the blood work done and they have to be wrapped in lead due to all the x-ray studies that they have had and now they are radioactive. That is why alternative medicine people, including chiropractors, have them return all the time, they always hold out a false hope of just a little more treatment. Then we have Trinity and a bunch of hospitals and universities all over the country buying into this tripe. It is about the money and always has been. The customer is always right and if they want woo we should sell it to them.
Peace Skeptical DoDo
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