We must realize that because allopathic medicine is rushing forth to find ways to integrate some use of unconventional approaches, the grassroots alternative medicine movement is being forced aside with the building of a new Complementary and Alternative Medicine industry. The same pharmaceutical companies that send their salespeople to wine and dine doctors are an integral part of the new Nutriceutical industry. This industry is mainly directed toward product development, marketing and sales, and is supplanting the ecological and traditional ethic of long standing groups such as the American Botanical Council and the Herb Research Foundation. Our responsibility as doctors is to protect our patients, but we need not define this role in a paternalistic manner. In a new movement to improve medical care, doctors can begin eliminating ignorance through working together with colleagues in alternative medicine to share information and increase education for the public at large.
Respect is the key.
We first must respect the diverse ethnic backgrounds of citizens of our country, including the natural and folk medicine traditions which people bring when they immigrate to the United States. Increasing the sophistication we all have regarding health is the first step in creating a safe system of preventative medicine. By coming to terms with the scientific value and the underlying depth of various fields of natural medicine, we can begin to develop a new humanistic approach to medicine. We can begin to once again give central value to important medical technologies such as compassion, which will revive the true spirit of the Western medical tradition as depicted in the Oath of Maimonides, the great physician of natural medicine and spiritual teacher, which is taken by graduates of many medical schools. Our objective is to initiate a dialogue among future physicians about the cultural context of various medical traditions, the wishes of patients in their interaction with their doctors, and the broader questions that lie behind this movement.