Integrated Medicine
The 21st century will see the continued integration of the best of complementary medicine into biomedical practice. It is timely. No longer a cottage industry, complementary medicine will continue to thrive. But whether it does so as a poor cousin to orthodox medicine who have subsumed what it can, or if it does so by standing strongly in offering expert advice in a primary health care context, time will tell.
In decades past, traditional users of complementary medicine were patients disillusioned with orthodox medical practices. Often they were attracted for political and philosophical reasons and sought to make a statement about the perceived unethical behaviours, vested interests and business and medical practices of pharmaceutical companies. Or they were attracted to natural and complementary medicine because of the philosophy, its gentleness, its capacity to do little harm and its efficacy. This is changing.
As complementary medicine becomes more effective, grounded, as graduates emerge with better social and biosciences, more and more patients and an increasing number of allopathic practitioners will seek to integrate the best that complimentary medicine has to offer. An integrative approach to personal and community health is the natural and logical result.
It’s not everyone. Natural medicine embodies both techniques and ideas, both philosophy and the dispensing of medicine.
Some Core Ideas
- do no harm
- take care of the basics
- drink water
- sleep enough
- maintain external fitness
- maintain and attend to your internal world
- it's important to take responsibility for your health
- it matters what you eat
- don’t eat anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food
- gentle is good
- medicine should be sustainable
- unnecessary use of pharmaceuticals is unethical
- the relationship between practitioner and patient matters
- there should be choice in health care
- vested interests should be declared
- symptoms are the language of disease
- the inside is a mirror of the outside
- the outside is a mirror of the inside
- symptoms are to be listened to not suppressed
- by organising the inside the outside takes care of itself
In some countries Integrated Medical systems include
- Osteopathy
- Homeopathy
- Naturopathy
- Western herbal medicine
- Traditional Chinese medicine
- Nutritional medicine
- Muscular skeletal therapy
Therapeutic techniques include
- Bodywork
- Massage
- Iridology
- Reflexology
- Kinesiology
- Aromatherapy
Self-care and Self-knowledge techniques
- Meditation
- Yoga
- Tai Chi
- Pilates
There is often confusion over the terms integrative, integrated, complementary and natural.
This site can assist you in finding information on integrative approaches, research on integrative, natural and complementary medicine and suggest clinicians and institutions to provide education or to provide health services.