Posted on 11/24/2002 6:58:46 AM PST by anobjectivist
Sunday, November 24, 2002 By Anita Vogel
LOS ANGELES — Medical schools were once the bastion of traditional medicine, based in well-researched scientific techniques. But nowadays the scalpel is making way for the acupuncture needle.
Once considered far outside the medical mainstream, non-Western techniques like acupuncture have broken through traditional barriers. Now alternative healing techniques like yoga and prayer are among a number of required classes at prestigious medical colleges around the country like Columbia, Yale and University of California at Los Angeles that branch far from traditional classes.
At the University of Arizona, students are even being taught horse-whispering to learn to gain patients' trust.
Some experts say the wider variety of classes opens students to new methods of treating their patients in an increasingly non-traditional world.
"What all of these things are trying to do is just to look at different ways of approaching patients, approaching illness, approaching communication, and anything that can develop that is fine," UCLA Medical School's Dr. Susan Stangl told Fox News.
And more and more medical schools seem to be agreeing with her. Nearly 80 percent of American medical schools now offer alternative courses as part of their curriculum. The goal is to train doctors who can treat the patient as well as the disease.
But others in the medical community have a second opinion — and wonder if this emphasis on TLC will come at the cost of competent care.
"In a word, I would be 'horrified,'" said Dr. John Robinson, a professor of medicine at Loyola University.
Robinson said placing so much importance on softer science is potentially dangerous because it distracts students from acquiring fundamental medical knowledge that has always been the basis for care in the United States.
"There's only a certain amount of time per day we have to teach the students, and each one of these classes takes away time from pathophysiology, immunology, clinical skills," he said. "With the explosion, the exponential explosion of bio-medical knowledge, any time we lose trying to teach this to budding physicians, I think it is a potential problem down the road for patients and doctors alike."
Reaction from potential patients has been mixed. Some say they'd actually prefer to be treated by a doctor trained in alternative practices.
"I would seek out those doctors that are trained in alternative medicine," said San Anselmo, Calif., native Jennifer McGeorge. "It shows me that they are more interested in preventative forms and have an open mind to all healing arts."
Others are more skeptical of the road less traveled.
"I think doctors should only be trained in alternative medicine as an elective, not a requirement," said Grellan Harty, 28, from New York City. "I wouldn't think they are a quack, but I would definitely question whether I should go to the doctor if they decide on alternative treatment instead of traditional methods."
Supporters of the curriculum in the medical community say exposure to subjects outside traditional science helps doctors develop their bedside manner, and that students still get a firm grounding in the basics.
"I would agree this would be weird if this was all that they're studying," Stangl said. "It's really just to keep people in touch with some of the human side of the art of medicine.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Facts first. Theories second. And there shouldn't be any room at all in med school for mysticism.
Prayer is desirable. Even necessary. But a doctor should do equipped to do the doctor's job. Not the pastor's.
The terminolgy in this matter has unfornately been turned around.
"Traditional medicine" is the more proper label for such things as acupuncture which have been passed down through tradition from generation to generation and were not developed through the scientific method.
The medicine taught in U.S. medical schools changes constantly by taking into account the new scientific discoveries that are made every day. There is absolutely nothing "traditional" about it.
I would say that it is helpful that medical schools expose students to "alternative therapies" for the simple fact that our patients seek these therapies out.
I have seen patients take comfort in these therapies when scientific medicine has nothing more to offer or as a security blanket when scientific medicine is working just fine but they want to cover all their bases. I have seen patients commit suicide by stopping chemo-therapy to run off the California for who-knows-what therapy.
In either case, we should have some training in what is out there as an "alternative" and what they are promising patients.
Shameless medical fraud should remain in the hands of the professional con artists: chirpractors and trial lawyers.
Sounds like a good goal to me.
Bump for a later read.
No, I didn't mean to imply that. I post lots of stuff I may not agree with just for the information or discussion value....I just noted the irony of the article with your screen name.
Wasn't taking you to task. My comments were aimed at the med schools who have adopted "soft medicine". And I'm sorry if that message didn't come across...
For minor complainst such as "I have a runny nose", the physician will usually just "treat 'em and street 'em". The more in depth analysis is left for the yearly physical.
However, for not so minor problems, the good physician will always give a full range of options. Some cancer therapies for certain cancers are almost always successful. With some cancer, you are a dead man walking no matter what you do.
In the former case, you advise, beg, plead, whine, scold, bribe, whatever it takes, to try to get the patient to at least go through proven therapy regardless of whatever else they decide to try. One of my most tragic cases was a beautiful young lady who stopped chemo-therapy when her CT showed her curable cancer to be almost resolved in order to go off and try some "alternative therapy" somewhere out of town. She returned months later with the cancer the size of a loaf of bread and definitely "out of the barn".
In the latter case, you advise them of what palliation is available and, if they decline, you wish them well if they choose an "alternative threrapy".
It's a free country and it is the patient who has ultimate control over his own life. All we can do is give them the best advice we can, argue with them when we have to and then accept the fact that patients are not our minor children.
I like the idea of Dr's knowing a wide range of alternatives. But I want them to know the basics first. I assume med students are maxed out with classes and studying. So which traditional classes are they missing out on by taking acupuncture?
What I would find useful for medical students is a one or two day mini-course on "alternative medicine" to teach them that, yes, some patients believe that this stuff works and you had better be informed about it because patients are going to ask you why they should take chemo-therapy when Doctor Tofu down in California is promising a cancer cure with herbal tea enemas.
If medical schools are going beyond that, they need to schedule the classes during summer vacations after first and second year when they will not interfere with anything else.
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