Week 21: Complimentary and Alternative Medicine

I never really understood how Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) really could be reconciled under western medicine but apparently it can as Mayo has some physicians - even western trained that practice both western and eastern medicine. I did a short research assignment this week on chiropractics and from what I found in PubMed, contrary to the popular belief that it has quite frequent complications, while it doesn't usually offer a curative solution, chiropractics adverse side effects are extremely rare.

I've updated my mentality towards CAM to be: "if it doesn't hurt you and science (western medicine) can't help you, you might as well pursue CAM -- if that's what you want to do. I'd hardly recommend it to a skeptic though as I feel it still has a self-satisfying quality to the field in general. Now I am still extremely skeptical about such practices as reike that channels energy without even touching you, but I'm all for the massage therapy and the acupuncture that we had a chance to try and experience for ourselves this week. I opted not to try the acupuncture when one of my classmates nearly passed out after getting some pins placed in his ear, but hey, anecdotal evidence from the acupuncturist (also M.D.) was compelling enough for me to be accepting (though not advocating) of it.

On that note, to those that like to grow their own herbs and brew their health potions, check out the Mayo Clinic published Book of Alternative Medicine - one of the authors came and lectured to us and gave us each copies. They give their do's and don't to many popular home remedies out there.