Should professional mainstream practitioners be working with alternative medicine??
Question: I know some do. But should they?
Answers: Actually, naturopath doctors are trained in the very same way as a medical doctor, only they are also trained in the area of natural therapies (rather than conventional) where medical doctors are not. A medical doctor may not be as knowledgeable about the natural therapies he is recommending, so it may not be wise for him to do so. Natural remedies are however much safer than prescribed drugs and can be just as effective. Maybe ask the doctor where he has learned his expertise on natural alternatives if concern exists.
As a chiropractor, some would argue that we are alternative and some would say that we are now fully integrated with traditional medicine. The vast majority of my profession refer patients and business to medical doctors all the time. That's called patient care, and it should always be about the patient's well being. As a doctor, it would be unethical to try and withhold a patient from the best treatments whether it be chiropractic, physical therapy, or sending them to the MD for drugs or surgery. Drugs and surgery is not a treat all man kind ailments, but neither is alternative medicine, but together combined as an approach can give the patient the best options and choices to their health. Remember, I cannot stress this enough, that doctors no matter what their discipline, work for the patient, not the other way around. Doctors are merely meant to guide the patient when they are sick or injured and help them recover whether it being traditional or non-allopathic. For example, when injured patients come to my office, I will diagnose and treat for their injuries, if they are in so much pain, I send them to the MD for a consult & pain medication, MD sends patient back to me for therapy and rehab, nutrition, etc... Now doesn't that work beautifully, The patient gets the best from both worlds and gets well faster.
If they have sufficient training, yes. If not, refer. That's what I do.
Not in my opinion. That would be like expecting Republicans to work with Democratic principles. They're on two completely different agendas. Mainstream practitioners seek to treat symptoms with prescriptions (and make a ton of money) whereas Altmed practitioners seek to give the body what it needs in order to heal itself. I just don't think it would work... the big pharma would get wind of this practice and make life very difficult for mainstream docs.
That being said, my personal doc doesn't seem to care about big bucks and big pharms. Sure, he'll prescribe meds for expedience, that's what he was initially trained to do. But if you tell him you'd rather do it naturally, he usually has an alternative. I believe he's the exception to the rule, however.
I can't speak for who regulates and issues licences in the US as I'm in the UK.
In the UK Allopaths are allowed to do courses in therapies like acupuncture and use them along side their regular practice.
Some Allopaths do a 13 month course in Osteopathy in the LCOM and can register / practise as osteopaths as well as Allopathic physicians.
I don't think the Chiropractors do a similar thing. For what its worth I don't think Osteo's should do this either. When I did my Osteopathic training in a different institution doctors wanting to become Osteopaths were effectively exempt from many modules meaning they could condense the course into 2 years instead of 4. Again I'm not too keen on this as we are taught each subject from an osteopathic perspective meaning the emphasis is on different things. For example Osteopaths learn Musculo-skeletal Anatomy in much greater detail than physicians (unless they specialise later on like orthopaedic surgeons for example). We didn't learn how to interpret blood tests and results to the same level as Allopaths because we are not required to do this in practice.
Having seen many Allopaths who have gone on to do shorter courses in osteopathy, many of them end up being doctors who do a few manual therapy techniques but don't cut it well as osteopaths.
In the UK we have resisted becoming absorbed into Allopathy after seeing how wrong it went in the US. Osteopathy has become so watered down in the US that many osteopaths (who effectively work as allopathic physicians) have no clue about manual medicine and will refer any of their patients needing manual therapy to Chiropractors or Physiotherapists!
70% of 1st year US osteopathy students can't name any of the fundamental osteopathic principles. Why? because at least 70% of them went to the osteopathic schools because they couldn't get into med school.The Osteopathic schools can't afford to be so choosy of their candidates. Doing the osteopathic training means they can still practice allopathy and drop the osteopathy later down the track.
The American Osteopathic model is so allopathic that the governing bodies are seriously considering restructuring it to a more traditional model because so many of their members don't practice any osteopathy.
In the UK we aren't allopaths or trying to be. We now have increasing numbers of allopaths referring to us. Prior to this recent change we had 70 years of allopaths trying to drive us out of business.
I prefer the model where GP's refer to proper regulated professions (such as Osteopathy) where all the members are
properly trained to screen their patients for systemic illness and will quite happily cross refer when they have a patient with a condition not in their remit.
I really don't support allopaths doing short courses and pretending to be altmed therapists. What happens is the therapy gets so absorbed into allopathic practice it dies.
There is no money to be made by drug companies from many Altmed practices so of course it isn't in their interests for these therapies to propagate.
Before I get any negative comments about my credibility or skill form any bloggers particularly a gentleman (lol) that seems to know a lot about engineering but very little about health care and gets all the information he publishes about altmed from quackwatch (which is actually full of anecdote and conjecture and not a lot of fact), I hope you can substantiate your claims with some decent research published in PubMed, Science Direct, PEDro etc.....
Added: I didn't notice this quote from Kalos before:
'Alas, Osteopathy in the UK (Britain) was not reformed, and UK-trained Osteopaths remain mired in superstition, delusion, and crackpottery — the butt of jokes by USA-trained Osteopaths.'
Kalos Keeps making claims like this but doesn't even provide any information from his beloved quackwatch to substantiate it.
For his information UK Osteopathy recently went through a radical reformation process in 1998 in response to an act of parliament in 1993. Osteopath became a protected title and only people invited could join the club and were allowed to register with GOsC.
You were only invited if you could prove you were of a required standard. prior to this the standard was varied but is now universal. Now all schools have a core common syllabus and all practitioners have a common standard. Some had to go through re-training and others even after re-training were not invited to register because they were not good enough.
We are now regulated by the General Osteopathic Council which has similar function and power to the General Medical Council.
Prior to this there was a major reformation in the 50's where the founders principles were revised and updated (in line with the reformation in the US.The major difference was they trained as Allopaths, we thought that there was a danger of osteopathy dying and disapearing into allopathy so we decided to stay as a seprate entity).
All of this information is available at request from:
http://www.osteopathy.org.uk and
http://www.osteopathy.org
yes. so they can stop prescribing all those pills that cause damage to the body
Well, by and large alternative medicine treatments (provided they work) tend to have 2 things in common.
1) They are very cheap (especially relative to normal medications), a significant fact when you consider most people cannot afford health care in the US.
2) They tend to have far less severe side effects and complications (mostly due to the fact they are based around simpler far more studied throughout time therapies than complex very new marketed ones, and also are much less invasive).
There is also the debateable third tenet which states that alternative therapies produce better results since they cure the root of the disease instead of the symptoms. Oftentimes this is true, but it's variable to the point you could consider this fact an opinion.
There are a lot of MDs (I know a few personally and have read about many), who would like to practice alternative therapies on their patients, but cannot since the AMA will take away their liscence if they do them (in order to protect their business). As a result, doctors are often put in a huge moral limbo, and generally the ones who became doctors to help people (instead of being sucessful ) break the rules. A few of these people have authored studies showing the benefits of alternative practices (hence creating a large part of the scientific proof any of it is safe and effective).
I personally think doctors should do it, but in the US it's very tightly controlled so few do, and some of the ones that do use crappy therapies. Europe is a way better model, and a lot of techniques considered quack fringe techniques are practiced by their MDs (with good results we cannot get over here).
Anyhow, last thing. With Kalos's post, he's using a lot of logical fallacies and flames, but with a great deal of charity, you could interpret his (still unsound) arguement as follows.
Alt med is very bad. I believe naturopathy represents all of alt med. A md gave an extremeley good reason for why naturopathy sucks. Therefore this link speaks for itself and settles the issue of alt med being bad.
So I read the article.
A few thoughts in regards to it.
The doctor is essentially saying some naturopaths practice crappy remedies, or ones not proven to work. Most of the stuff he listed is either not practiced by mainstream naturopaths, or grossly misrepresented (and two points which are actually correct but slandered). Rather he is citing the work of uncertificed naturopaths that were self taught and got their degrees from diploma mills. Ignoring all the appeal to authorities littering the piece, he's essentially making a catch22 to justify banning naturopathy. He's basically saying non certificed unofficial naturopaths do bad practices we can selectively pick out therefore we should not have a certfied naturopath medical board in this state which enforces that they only do good practices and are properly trained and liscened.
Truthfully, that's pretty low even by quackwatch's standard.
I knew one of the doctors who got naturopathy liscened in california, and she told me that the AMA, Chiropractors, and the fake naturopath schools all paid lawyers and experts to testify against naturopathy, since it's just a business thing and they need to spend money to aggressively defend their markets.
*edit
nice counter arguement Kalos. You ignored the entire point and argued semantics on a single technicality (boards technically do it, but two are intertwined and either can influence the other to do what they desire). I did debate in college and that's normally considered dropping/conceding the entire argument.
Answers: Actually, naturopath doctors are trained in the very same way as a medical doctor, only they are also trained in the area of natural therapies (rather than conventional) where medical doctors are not. A medical doctor may not be as knowledgeable about the natural therapies he is recommending, so it may not be wise for him to do so. Natural remedies are however much safer than prescribed drugs and can be just as effective. Maybe ask the doctor where he has learned his expertise on natural alternatives if concern exists.
As a chiropractor, some would argue that we are alternative and some would say that we are now fully integrated with traditional medicine. The vast majority of my profession refer patients and business to medical doctors all the time. That's called patient care, and it should always be about the patient's well being. As a doctor, it would be unethical to try and withhold a patient from the best treatments whether it be chiropractic, physical therapy, or sending them to the MD for drugs or surgery. Drugs and surgery is not a treat all man kind ailments, but neither is alternative medicine, but together combined as an approach can give the patient the best options and choices to their health. Remember, I cannot stress this enough, that doctors no matter what their discipline, work for the patient, not the other way around. Doctors are merely meant to guide the patient when they are sick or injured and help them recover whether it being traditional or non-allopathic. For example, when injured patients come to my office, I will diagnose and treat for their injuries, if they are in so much pain, I send them to the MD for a consult & pain medication, MD sends patient back to me for therapy and rehab, nutrition, etc... Now doesn't that work beautifully, The patient gets the best from both worlds and gets well faster.
If they have sufficient training, yes. If not, refer. That's what I do.
Not in my opinion. That would be like expecting Republicans to work with Democratic principles. They're on two completely different agendas. Mainstream practitioners seek to treat symptoms with prescriptions (and make a ton of money) whereas Altmed practitioners seek to give the body what it needs in order to heal itself. I just don't think it would work... the big pharma would get wind of this practice and make life very difficult for mainstream docs.
That being said, my personal doc doesn't seem to care about big bucks and big pharms. Sure, he'll prescribe meds for expedience, that's what he was initially trained to do. But if you tell him you'd rather do it naturally, he usually has an alternative. I believe he's the exception to the rule, however.
I can't speak for who regulates and issues licences in the US as I'm in the UK.
In the UK Allopaths are allowed to do courses in therapies like acupuncture and use them along side their regular practice.
Some Allopaths do a 13 month course in Osteopathy in the LCOM and can register / practise as osteopaths as well as Allopathic physicians.
I don't think the Chiropractors do a similar thing. For what its worth I don't think Osteo's should do this either. When I did my Osteopathic training in a different institution doctors wanting to become Osteopaths were effectively exempt from many modules meaning they could condense the course into 2 years instead of 4. Again I'm not too keen on this as we are taught each subject from an osteopathic perspective meaning the emphasis is on different things. For example Osteopaths learn Musculo-skeletal Anatomy in much greater detail than physicians (unless they specialise later on like orthopaedic surgeons for example). We didn't learn how to interpret blood tests and results to the same level as Allopaths because we are not required to do this in practice.
Having seen many Allopaths who have gone on to do shorter courses in osteopathy, many of them end up being doctors who do a few manual therapy techniques but don't cut it well as osteopaths.
In the UK we have resisted becoming absorbed into Allopathy after seeing how wrong it went in the US. Osteopathy has become so watered down in the US that many osteopaths (who effectively work as allopathic physicians) have no clue about manual medicine and will refer any of their patients needing manual therapy to Chiropractors or Physiotherapists!
70% of 1st year US osteopathy students can't name any of the fundamental osteopathic principles. Why? because at least 70% of them went to the osteopathic schools because they couldn't get into med school.The Osteopathic schools can't afford to be so choosy of their candidates. Doing the osteopathic training means they can still practice allopathy and drop the osteopathy later down the track.
The American Osteopathic model is so allopathic that the governing bodies are seriously considering restructuring it to a more traditional model because so many of their members don't practice any osteopathy.
In the UK we aren't allopaths or trying to be. We now have increasing numbers of allopaths referring to us. Prior to this recent change we had 70 years of allopaths trying to drive us out of business.
I prefer the model where GP's refer to proper regulated professions (such as Osteopathy) where all the members are
properly trained to screen their patients for systemic illness and will quite happily cross refer when they have a patient with a condition not in their remit.
I really don't support allopaths doing short courses and pretending to be altmed therapists. What happens is the therapy gets so absorbed into allopathic practice it dies.
There is no money to be made by drug companies from many Altmed practices so of course it isn't in their interests for these therapies to propagate.
Before I get any negative comments about my credibility or skill form any bloggers particularly a gentleman (lol) that seems to know a lot about engineering but very little about health care and gets all the information he publishes about altmed from quackwatch (which is actually full of anecdote and conjecture and not a lot of fact), I hope you can substantiate your claims with some decent research published in PubMed, Science Direct, PEDro etc.....
Added: I didn't notice this quote from Kalos before:
'Alas, Osteopathy in the UK (Britain) was not reformed, and UK-trained Osteopaths remain mired in superstition, delusion, and crackpottery — the butt of jokes by USA-trained Osteopaths.'
Kalos Keeps making claims like this but doesn't even provide any information from his beloved quackwatch to substantiate it.
For his information UK Osteopathy recently went through a radical reformation process in 1998 in response to an act of parliament in 1993. Osteopath became a protected title and only people invited could join the club and were allowed to register with GOsC.
You were only invited if you could prove you were of a required standard. prior to this the standard was varied but is now universal. Now all schools have a core common syllabus and all practitioners have a common standard. Some had to go through re-training and others even after re-training were not invited to register because they were not good enough.
We are now regulated by the General Osteopathic Council which has similar function and power to the General Medical Council.
Prior to this there was a major reformation in the 50's where the founders principles were revised and updated (in line with the reformation in the US.The major difference was they trained as Allopaths, we thought that there was a danger of osteopathy dying and disapearing into allopathy so we decided to stay as a seprate entity).
All of this information is available at request from:
http://www.osteopathy.org.uk and
http://www.osteopathy.org
yes. so they can stop prescribing all those pills that cause damage to the body
Well, by and large alternative medicine treatments (provided they work) tend to have 2 things in common.
1) They are very cheap (especially relative to normal medications), a significant fact when you consider most people cannot afford health care in the US.
2) They tend to have far less severe side effects and complications (mostly due to the fact they are based around simpler far more studied throughout time therapies than complex very new marketed ones, and also are much less invasive).
There is also the debateable third tenet which states that alternative therapies produce better results since they cure the root of the disease instead of the symptoms. Oftentimes this is true, but it's variable to the point you could consider this fact an opinion.
There are a lot of MDs (I know a few personally and have read about many), who would like to practice alternative therapies on their patients, but cannot since the AMA will take away their liscence if they do them (in order to protect their business). As a result, doctors are often put in a huge moral limbo, and generally the ones who became doctors to help people (instead of being sucessful ) break the rules. A few of these people have authored studies showing the benefits of alternative practices (hence creating a large part of the scientific proof any of it is safe and effective).
I personally think doctors should do it, but in the US it's very tightly controlled so few do, and some of the ones that do use crappy therapies. Europe is a way better model, and a lot of techniques considered quack fringe techniques are practiced by their MDs (with good results we cannot get over here).
Anyhow, last thing. With Kalos's post, he's using a lot of logical fallacies and flames, but with a great deal of charity, you could interpret his (still unsound) arguement as follows.
Alt med is very bad. I believe naturopathy represents all of alt med. A md gave an extremeley good reason for why naturopathy sucks. Therefore this link speaks for itself and settles the issue of alt med being bad.
So I read the article.
A few thoughts in regards to it.
The doctor is essentially saying some naturopaths practice crappy remedies, or ones not proven to work. Most of the stuff he listed is either not practiced by mainstream naturopaths, or grossly misrepresented (and two points which are actually correct but slandered). Rather he is citing the work of uncertificed naturopaths that were self taught and got their degrees from diploma mills. Ignoring all the appeal to authorities littering the piece, he's essentially making a catch22 to justify banning naturopathy. He's basically saying non certificed unofficial naturopaths do bad practices we can selectively pick out therefore we should not have a certfied naturopath medical board in this state which enforces that they only do good practices and are properly trained and liscened.
Truthfully, that's pretty low even by quackwatch's standard.
I knew one of the doctors who got naturopathy liscened in california, and she told me that the AMA, Chiropractors, and the fake naturopath schools all paid lawyers and experts to testify against naturopathy, since it's just a business thing and they need to spend money to aggressively defend their markets.
*edit
nice counter arguement Kalos. You ignored the entire point and argued semantics on a single technicality (boards technically do it, but two are intertwined and either can influence the other to do what they desire). I did debate in college and that's normally considered dropping/conceding the entire argument.
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