Alternative Medicines

Medical Plants aren’t Taught in Med School

Is Alternative Medicine Being Excluded?

by Ann Christelle Labossiere

        In the Western civilization known as America, pre-med students aren’t learning about medicinal plants. While many doctors can tell you that they went to school for alternative medicines, the idea of herbs in as being a part of the medical community has been contentious. According to the online Merriam Webster Dictionary, alternative medicine is defined as “any various systems of healing or treating disease not included in the traditional medical curricula of the U.S. and Britain.”
        In a 2011 article published on The Atlantic by David H. Freedman, titled The Triumph of New-Age Medicine, Freedman starts off the article discussing a clinic in Maryland funded by National Institutes of Health. The clinic is called the Research Center of Excellence. There at the clinic, they perform alternative treatments like acupuncture. (For housekeeping purposes, Freedman explains that integrative medicine Berman, the director of Research Center of Excellence “refers to the conjunction of [“acupuncture, homeopathy...chiropractic, herbal medicine, Reiki..meditation..massage, aromatherapy, hypnosis..”] with mainstream medical care.” )
        Steven Novella, MD-a skeptic of “Alternative Medicine” who wrote an article titled We Should Abandon the Concept of “Alternative Medicine” - discussed his disapproval with the idea of acupuncture. His concerns not only begin with the risk of contamination with the needles but expands further to the idea of Alternative Medicine as a scam and a waste of money. This is not to say that a close patient-doctor relationship isn't valued in the medical world, but that approaching a patient without the conventional means-data, using tools such as x-rays, drug prescriptions- is deemed ineffective.
    Despite the disagreement with the practice of alternative medicine, there is a growing population of integrative medical-research clinics such as in Harvard, Duke, Yale, and Mayo Clinic (Freedman). These clinics have the support system of many physicians (Freedman). For instance, president of Maryland’s University at Baltimore and practicing pediatrician at the time of Freedman’s article (Jay Perman) stated, “Doctors...taught to make a diagnosis, prescribe a therapy, and we’re done. But we’re not done...When it comes to alternative medicine, it’s not clear what the mechanism is that can make it helpful to patients, but it may be that it helps create the right environment” (Freedman).  This idea of creating the "right environment” can be testified through the experience of Frank Corasaniti, a retired firefighter. Unfortunately, Corasaniti had injured himself from a fall that led to numerous surgeries and a series of painkillers or drugs to alleviate the pain. Corasanti joined Berman’s clinic and was placed under acupuncture care of a physiologist, Lixing Lao. Lao reassured Corasaniti by explaining how acupuncture’s objectives to release energy pathways that are “blocked.”Corasaniti had many visits after his first ones and would be asked follow-up questions regarding his lifestyle, habits, family life, and conditions that have been impacting him.
        “Corasaniti declared after his series of visits at Berman’s clinic that he “just feels so much better.” Corasaniti’s story isn’t the only one. Incredibly, there have been other cases with alternative practices. Many concerns with legitimizing alternative medicine as a norm into the medical community are concerns regarding success. In a YouTube video by NCCIH, it gives an example of acupuncture within a clinic. Particularly from time span 1:43-1:53, the individual doing the voiceover explained how the FDA stated that practitioners should use a set of “disposable needles taken from a sealed package for each treatment.” Thus, claims of contaminants as a claim against legitimizing an acupuncture session can be disregarded.  
        According to a New York Times article Power of Nothing, Michael Specter-a NYT staff writer since 1998 and who has written about different fields of the sciences-wrote about opened up his article about a remarkable story with acupuncture. Specter talks about Ted Kaptchuk. Keptchuk is an acupuncturist who works at Harvard Medical in Cambridge and opened up a business back in '76 in a region where there were "no practitioners of Chinese medicine" at the time. As an Asian man who spent four years "honing his craft." Essentially, he received a patient who suffered from chronic bronchitis. This woman felt so relieved that she gave a Persian rug to Keptchuk, who was shocked by the offer and did not expect that her conditions would have fully improved the way it did. In addition, Kaptchuk offers his own experience that he had not thought of as being a placebo- another means of helping a patient that holds psychological pros to the patient. After telling his doctors of his chest pains and getting an examination by his doctor, Kaptchuk himself was shocked to feel it go away. His doctor told him that it was fine and it was most likely the stress of the holidays. Respecting his doctor as an individual who often took an "extremely science-based approach," he was impressed by the power of words.
        Healing is not only in the form of pills. With techniques in alternative medicine,- which is interesting that we call it alternative medicine in the Western world- there have been more than enough proven times that saying that there are more effective means of handling a patient is not helpful to the growth of our understandings. Perhaps it is still unclear how the power of words or nonconventional means of helping a patient- means different than what you would find at most hospitals- actually benefits the patient, it is a form of exclusion and discrimination to ignore other practices. In a growing world, the medical community will grow to be diverse and with every staff member and patient comes a different story and history.