A reply to SAMA's policy statement on Complementary Medicine. Few doctors using natural medicines would call themselves complementary any more: the term is obsolete, and what has replaced it is a genuine integration rather than a mixture of systems.
SAMA(South African Medical Association) has issued a policy statement about Complementary Medicine, that I believe requires clarification and further discussion. (1) Few doctors today using ‘Natural Medicines’ would regard themselves as ‘Complementary’ doctors. This is now an obsolete term, as we have moved from Alternative Medicine to Complementary and now Integrative Medicine. This is the nature of progress as one paradigm shifts to another, and increasing number of people recognize that a shift in thinking and practice has taken place. Change does not flow in a seamless way, and often causes confusion, disagreements and a battle around points of view. Eventually however one paradigm becomes the norm and the majority of professionals integrate that viewpoint into their professional life. Out of this arises something that is not just a mixture of different systems, but a true integrative process.
The South African Society of Complementary Medicine (SACMA) which represented medical doctors practicing the various forms of ‘Alternative’ medicine such as Homeopathy, Acupuncture, Ayurvedic and Anthroposophical medicine, no longer exists.
It was replaced by the South African Society of Integrative Medicine (SASIM).
SASIM was started by a group of doctors who no longer regarded themselves as homeopaths or acupuncturists but as medical doctors who had integrated a new philosophical approach into their practice of medicine, and used a much wider array of medicines and tools to manage ill health.
In this article I will try to explore the difference between the conventional model as practiced by most medical practitioners today, and the way integrative medicine is developing.
In an emerging process one can never be sure what the end point will look like. We are clearly in the middle of this paradigm shift as each profession opens up to the benefits of the other and recognises that there is no competition, but a natural development being processed by sensitive and caring practitioners who have the ill person's wellness as a priority.
The practice of medicine over the centuries has adopted many varied and different philosophies and methods of application.
Modern conventional medicine is said to follow a mechanistic Cartesian reductionistic worldview. The opposite of this worldview could be called a Holistic Quantum mechanical systems viewpoint. This latter viewpoint, when applied to medicine, is called Integrative.
There is real confusion between the different terms used to describe non- conventional medicine, such as alternative medicine, complementary medicine, holistic medicine, energetic medicine etc. In the early days of the movement towards integrative medicine, doctors practicing outside the conventional model would often be described as “alternative” practitioners. With time this label was seen as oppositional and even hostile and complementary medicine seemed to be a more appropriate label for practitioners who felt unhappy about the way the ‘alternative’ label was being used to separate doctors practicing natural medicine.
In the early days the concept of complementary medicine was understood as being the use of natural medicines to complement the use of drugs and surgery in the practice of conventional medicine.
However as these doctors became more effective at using natural medicines, and relied less and less on drugs, it became obvious that the natural remedies were being used to complement the body's own natural healing capacity, and not the drugs and surgery. Thus complementary medicine began to be understood as the use of natural medicines and techniques to support the body's healing.
The term holistic medicine became popular to describe the practice of medicine which recognized that all illnesses involved body, mind and spirit and that the family, social circumstances and environment all needed to be taken into account when dealing with illness.
Integrative Medicine is a more recent development, and perhaps has come about as complementary/holistic practitioners mature and gain more confidence in what they are doing. There is the acceptance, that using both conventional medicine and complementary / holistic medicine together provides a much better overview of the ill person, and that each approach has something to contribute in a positive way. It is important to understand that Integrative Medicine is still in its infancy, and while its philosophical underpinning is slowly emerging, it is difficult to see how it will eventually look. Just as when a mixture becomes a compound, new properties emerge which were never there before.
Definition of integrative medicine
“Integrative Medicine recognises the holistic and unique nature of human-beings, which encompasses physio-energetic information systems. It investigates the multi-factoral causes of dis-ease. In this approach the practitioner and the sick individual form a team working towards an integrated protocol of management best suited for that person.
The priority is to support health using the least invasive and most natural approach, this does not exclude symptomatic treatment of disease, where appropriate.”
