Naturopaths, herbalists and other alternative practitioners should not be regarded as a means to controlling health care costs. Paradoxically, these new players will increase costs. When we are ill, we need the help of highly trained people with the potential to understand disease processes all the way from our genes to our needs, desires and relationships. Alternative practitioners can play only a marginal role in treating illness in our patients. We also have the opportunity to subject their treatments to the same standards of evaluation that we apply to our own.
Physician training is long, complex and expensive.
Provincial governments are deeply involved in regulating this training with a view to controlling costs. Unfortunately, they make decisions based on assumptions that are simplistic or just plain wrong. The hapless bureaucrats who in the end control residency positions must rely on human-resources projections. The projectionists must speculate about physician supply 8 to 12 years down the road. There must be sufficient opportunity for physicians to change course or to be retrained as technology changes and as projections are again proven wrong.