Anti anti conventionalism….. if you see what I mean

Although the terms complementary and alternative are used often interchangeably without much significance I always think it useful to highlight the importance of acupuncture existing as a complement to conventional medicine and not a replacement or an alternative. In medicine, as is so often the case in many areas of life, it seems that too often people fragment into opposing camps and then find an opinion and stick to it resolutely.  This happens frequently in medicine with very often people choosing a ‘conventional’ or an ‘alternative’ camp with rarely little objective crossover into seeing the relative virtues and limitations of both sides.

In the care of each patient as an individual, and bearing in mind the symptom is occurring in the context of a person, it seems the most important thing is giving the patient access to whatever treatment produces the most effective change in the safest possible way.  As the maxim goes, ‘the medicine you need is the one that gets you better’. For different patients in different contexts, that medicine could be one of a number of different modalities, but initially in the treatment of illness a patients first port of call should be their GP to rule out any serious cause of illness that could be creating their symptom. Once this has been done then lots of options become available for how a patient might manage their problem. The strength of conventional medicine is its diagnosis and treatment of acute serious illness, where it can sometimes fall short is in the management of chronic illness, or the many cases of ‘functional’ illness when organically nothing wrong is found, but the patient is clearly not well and healthy.  In recent years the reputation of complementary approaches (which far too often are categorised under the same banner) to healthcare has been damaged by the claims of some modalities of treatment, like homeopathy, to treat disease for which it has no possible means of treating (malaria for example). In this context neglecting conventional approaches has been dangerous and detrimental to patient well being.

If patients and practitioner in the care of the patients health both value a conventional diagnosis prior to anything else, then the safest route has been taken in addressing the problem, and a multitude of options can be explored. So in conclusion… let’s have less anti conventionalism  and more of an integrated total approach.