Feb 15 2012
The Bravewell Collaborative maps the state of “integrative medicine” in the U.S., or: Survey says, “Hop on the bandwagon of ‘integrative medicine’!” (2012 Edition)
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[...] about alternative medicine and health please use the buttons below to share with your friends.Both traditional allopathic medicine and complementary alternative medicine have their roles and the…t="" width="190" height="300" />Both traditional allopathic medicine and complementary alternative [...]
“There are, however, lots of patient satisfaction surveys showing that patients like the woo being offered . . .”
Turns out that “patient satisfaction” might not be all that it’s cracked up to be.
Arch Intern Med. 2012 Feb 13.
The Cost of Satisfaction: A National Study of Patient Satisfaction, Health Care Utilization, Expenditures, and Mortality.
Fenton JJ, Jerant AF, Bertakis KD, Franks P.
CONCLUSION:
In a nationally representative sample, higher patient satisfaction was associated with less emergency department use but with greater inpatient use, higher overall health care and prescription drug expenditures, and increased mortality.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22331982
It definitely reads like a marketing/advertising scheme.
“It’s a Barnum and Bailey world, just as phony as it can be” goes the song.
This sentence is particularly phony-squishy: “This survey has shown that integrative medicine centers embrace a group of core values that inform and radiate through their practice and interactions with their patients.”
–”Embrace” rather than practice, because embrace conjures up maternal instincts and romance.
–”Inform” rather than have a printed list of standards, because being informed is pleasantly passive while having to gin up a document requires work and presumes someone will actually want to read it.
–”Radiate” through their practice, instead of saying they all adhere to the same guidelines. (Odd, though, that they’d use this particular metaphor as it reminds much of the target audience of cell phone radiation, EMF sensitivity and all sorts of other radioactive horrors.)
–And then there is some weird difference, we assume, between these people’s “interactions” and “practice” with their patients. I guess the former could mean they all meet up at the same holistic spa for a deep mud bath, salt rub, and colonic after all that allopathically-icky stuff is done to satisfy diagnostic coding for insurance billing, but its still an odd distinction that implies a kind of friendship or somesuch that stodgy ol’ docs eschew.
Yeah, in the bravewell new world, it’s all warm, fuzzy and likely very, very expensive.
“They seem to want to view themselves as special flowers”
I must remember that one.
Sadly, I didn’t originate that one. Like all great (and humble) writers, I steal.
Must…resist…pedantic…nitpicking…spelling…grammar…torture…TYPOS!!!!
Any chance of e-mailing the editor/proofreader directly rather than using comments? I know Dr. Gorski in particular hates this sort of thing, and I normally try to restrict my comments only to those that are confusing or obvious contradictions like an accidental “not” in the wrong place. But at the same time, in a text-based medium, proper spelling and grammar are the suit-and-haircut to the substance and add a nice polish that makes it easier to focus on the actual content.
Obvious hypocrisy since I consistently misspell the following words:
#Misspell/Mis-spell/Mispell
#Hypocrisy
#Focussing/focussed
#Counseling/counselling
@Jann:
I just read that article last night and have had an email conversation with a few of my colleagues about it. Well placed here, I believe.
“First, when, exactly, did nutrition or food become somehow “alternative” or “integrative”?”
When the CAM world started using the CAM approach to diet and nutrition.
Instead of using a science based approach, CAM tends to base dietary practices on various logical fallacies, “common sense”, gut instincts, vitalism, wishful thinking, etc. When you throw the scientific approach out the window, not only can you make up whatever dietary recommendations you want, but you can make any claims for efficacy that you want as well, such as preventing or curing any disease (even cancer) through diet
“Snark aside, note that, out of the top seven modalities reportedly used, only one of them is truly “alternative,” ”
True, but I feel it’s important to point out that which I know you are well aware of, that the philosophy, approach and practice of those other modalities by the CAM world is what makes them alternative, unscientific, and often completely invalid. Just because a someone uses real tools and building materials doesn’t mean they know how to properly build a house or that I should accept their alternate building codes.
“What didn’t surprise me is that some of these centers employ reflexologists and Rolfers, although I must admit that I have no idea what an “energy psychologist” is. Nor do I really want to know.”
After seeing the term “energy psychologist”, I think they need to employ some ROTFLers. I’m doing it for free right now.
“it re-brands science-based modalities like nutrition as somehow being “alternative” so that it can be listed as being CAM.”
Actually, I’d say it also repackages science-based modalities into pseudoscientific knock-offs, thus presenting the appearance of valid science based modalities.
@William
Truly, I am puzzled. I just reread the entire article carefully and found a grand total of one typo, one misuse of “it’s” for “its” that I suspect to have been due to the annoying Mac OS X Lion autocorrect feature, and zero misspelled words or obvious grammar errors. I did, however, make a handful of very minor changes for style that, after having reread the post, I think could have been improved. I didn’t even find a single sentence fragment, and I do have a tendency to miss those sometimes when I’m editing fast and furious. Ditto any “Frankensentences” (really long sentences that, while grammatically correct, are really difficult to follow). Not bad for 3,500 words.
So, seriously, I don’t see the problem, at least not with this post.
And that is the last I will say about style and grammar outside of e-mail.
Goddamnit, I just checked the “contact us” page where I could forward crap like this to. I’ll never post another comment like this again, and I should have done the research first. I’ll send Dr. Gorski and Paul an e-mail about it instead.
I’m sorry Dr. Gorski, I know you hate this sort of nit-picking and now that I’ve identified the appropriate venue I’ll stop doing dumb stuff like this. I completely admit my failure here.
Because skeptics admit when they’re wrong.
Sarah.
It’s not a big deal. The main reason such comments irritate me is not because I hate having my errors pointed out but rather because they derail comment threads to no good end.
Frankly I think people just need to use their heads a little more. If someone is going to insist they’re allergic to rocks because reflexology told them so then they deserve to be swindled. It’s the job of family members who have to bail them out to set them straight, and at some point when the pocketbook is dry and they feel no better reality has a real habit of smacking people right between the eyes.
Science-based medicine is the goal … always the goal, because once understood it can be controlled, but what about evidence-based science for which a scientific-base as not yet been established?
Is it irresponsible for a doctor to recommend a treatment when it’s pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics and the scientific basis for it’s operation at the molecular level is *not* well understood? If so then how will most medicine would have never been developed to start with, considering that most medicine (like most science) develops through trial and error? NIH won’t even look at funding a study until there’s substantial evidence already in place that a certain treatment shows promise – and where are you going to get that pre-trial evidence without ACAM practitioners who are willing to try untried and potentially dangerous end-of-life options? The problem, of course is when they do that when someone is not end-of-life and prudent protocols have not yet been exhausted.
That, and I have thought many times in reference to ACAM, “Good heaven’s man, have some discipline!”.
“Actually, I’d say it also repackages science-based modalities into pseudoscientific knock-offs, thus presenting the appearance of valid science based modalities.”
CAM/Integrative medicine is cargo cult medicine.
[...] Medicine in America” report published by the Bravewell Collaborative. Drs. Novella and Gorski have already given that report its due, so I won’t repeat the background information. [...]
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deavea 101 “Science-based medicine is the goal … always the goal, because once understood it can be controlled”
Why does controlling produce a result Dave? That would imply that the lack of control evident in most disease processes by medical science means they have no idea what they are doing? Mutation of infections, cancer….
Infections and cancer don’t mutate Sarah.
“If someone is going to insist they’re allergic to rocks because reflexology told them so then they deserve to be swindled. It’s the job of family members who have to bail them out to set them straight, and at some point when the pocketbook is dry and they feel no better reality has a real habit of smacking people right between the eyes.”
Isn’t this a little harsh? (speaking as one of those family members, who tried for years and years to get Mom and Dad to see reason regarding their panoply of miracle cures, watching them get ripped off over and over, watching their health decline as actual treatable illnesses went untreated in favor of magic …) Some people cannot be reasoned with. I was often very angry with my parents over this, but that doesn’t make me NOT angry at the people who ripped them off.
Yes reality then smacks them between the eyes, i.e., they’re dead.
DW there are just as many, if not more people dying from medicine. Yes there is bullshit out there but some of it is mainstream orthodox, 160,000 people died on Vioxx, a bloody painkiller and that is no less a tragedy.
I know I know don’t feed the troll. but for the sake of the viewing public
the 160,000 figure that sarah keeps tossing around is the estimated number of heart attacks and strokes attributed to the use of Vioxx. That includes both fatalities and incidents where the paitent survived.
As always treating quotes from naturalist and healing web sites as actual data instead of checking the source is bad idea if you want to be taken seriously.