political correctness
There are few subjects in the area of alternative medicine which are more deceptive than the now fashionable topic of “integrated medicine” (or integrative medicine, healthcare etc.). According to its proponents, integrated medicine (IM) is based mainly on two concepts. The first is that of “whole person care”, and the second is often called “the best of both worlds”. Attractive concepts, one might think – why then do I find IM superfluous, deeply misguided and plainly wrong?
Whole patient care or holism
Integrated healthcare practitioners, we are being told, do not just treat the physical complaints of a patient but look after the whole individual: body, mind and soul. On the surface, this approach seems most laudable. Yet a closer look reveals major problems.
The truth is that all good medicine is, was, and always will be holistic: today’s GPs, for instance, should care for their patients as whole individuals dealing the best they can with physical problems as well as social and spiritual issues. I said “should” because many doctors seem to neglect the holistic aspect of care. If that is so, they are, by definition, not good doctors. And, if the deficit is wide-spread, we should reform conventional healthcare. But delegating holism to IM-practitioners would be tantamount to abandoning an essential element of good healthcare; it would be a serious disservice to today’s patients and a detriment to the healthcare of tomorrow.
It follows that the promotion of IM under the banner of holism is utter nonsense. Either it is superfluous because it misleads patients into believing holism is an exclusive feature of IM, while, in fact, it is a hallmark of any good healthcare. Or, if holism is neglected or absent in a particular branch of conventional medicine, it detracts us from the important task to remedy this deficit. We simply must not allow a core value of medicine to be highjacked.
The best of both worlds
The second concept of IM is often described as “the best of both worlds”. Proponents of IM claim to use the “best” of the world of alternative medicine and combine it with the “best” of conventional healthcare. Again, this concept looks commendable at first glance but, at closer inspection, serious doubts emerge.
They hinge, in my view, on the use of the term “best”. We have to ask, what does “best” stand for in the context of healthcare? Surely it cannot mean the most popular or fashionable – and certainly “best” is not by decree of HRH Prince Charles. Best can only signify “the most effective” or more precisely “being associated with the most convincingly positive risk/benefit balance”.
If we understand “the best of both worlds” in this way, the concept becomes synonymous with the concept of evidence-based medicine (EBM) which represents the currently accepted thinking in healthcare. According to the principles of EBM, treatments must be shown to be safe as well as effective. When treating their patients, doctors should, according to EBM-principles, combine the best external evidence with their own experience as well as with the preferences of their patients.
If “the best of both worlds” is synonymous with EBM, we clearly don’t need this confusing duplicity of concepts in the first place; it would only distract from the auspicious efforts of EBM to continuously improve healthcare. In other words, the second axiom of IM is as nonsensical as the first.
The practice of integrated medicine
So, on the basis of these somewhat theoretical considerations, IM is a superfluous, misleading and counterproductive distraction. But the most powerful argument against IM is really an entirely practical one: namely the nonsensical, bogus and dangerous things that are happening every day in its name and under its banner.
If we look around us, go on the internet, read the relevant literature, or walk into an IM clinic in our neighbourhood, we are sure to find that behind all these politically correct slogans of holism and” best of all worlds” there is the coal face of pure quackery.Perhaps you don’t believe me, so go and look for yourself. I promise you will discover any unproven and disproven therapy that you can think of, anything from crystal healing to Reiki, and from homeopathy to urine-therapy.
What follows is depressingly simple: IM is a front of half-baked concepts behind which boundless quackery and bogus treatments are being promoted to unsuspecting consumers.