Allopathic Medical Professionals Cringe
About New Direction in Canadian Health
14 May 07
 Dr.
Mark Sherman is big on the mind-body connection. The
36-year-old physician at the James Bay Community Project in
Canada teaches yoga and meditation courses, practices Reiki
and believes in herbal medicines.
These aren't alternative practices in his view; they're
complementary to Western-based medicine.
At least 50 per cent of Canadians use some form of
alternative medicine, so maybe it's time they're taken more
seriously by the medical profession, health policy makers
and government, he says. It is estimated that at least
that percentage of United States residents also employ, or
have relied upon complementary health modalities.
"I think that there has really been a lag period. The
general public has really been asking for this for a long
time."
As part of his commitment to bringing the best of both
worlds together, Sherman is one of the organizers behind the
Body Heals Conference. It will bring dozens of speakers from
all over North America, and as far as England and China, to
the University of Victoria from May 25-27.
It's one of the biggest such conferences in Canada.
Sherman believes allopathic doctors worldwide are doing more
listening.
"We're seeing many more textbooks on herbal medicines, how
they interact with drugs; studies about acupuncture are
coming out in routine medical literature that we read. So I
definitely think it's becoming more mainstream."
It can't come too quickly for Sherman: "I feel very strongly
that an integrative approach to health including the whole
community, the whole environment, the whole person, is an
inevitable evolution in health care."
Sherman is one of about 25 MDs belonging to the Association
of Complementary and Integrative Physicians of British
Columbia, trying to address "gaps in health care" and get
the conversation going with other doctors, policy-makers and
government. The conference title reflects that: Integration:
The Best Model for Health Care.
Workshops for health practitioners range from Carolyn
DeMarco, MD, on the myths surrounding current osteoporosis
treatment, including unabsorbable calcium, to A Holistic
Mind/Body Approach to the Management of Medically
Unexplained Symptoms, presented by a team from the
University of Calgary.
Even though many presenters are medical doctors with an
alternative view, the big draw -- already sold out -- is the
$110 presentation by 20-year-old Adam Dreamhealer.
On Dreamhealer's website, the first question is "What is a
quantum hologram?"
Answer: "A quantum hologram is what Adam sees when he
connects to an individual's energetic system. It can consist
of many different layers such as skeletal-muscular view; the
bodies organs; nervous system and different magnifications
on these views."
The British Columbia Medical Association is not keen on
what's coming down.
Just because people have genuine credentials doesn't mean
that everything they have to say is scientifically
supportable, says Dr. Lloyd Oppel, association spokesman on
alternative medicine. "It can really give the gloss of a lot
of scientific validity to a conference."
With scientific medicine taken for granted, it's not
surprising that people wanting more are turning to
"imaginative sources" for health, Oppel says.
He's worried that the public -- which is invited to
workshops before and after the main conference -- could be
misinformed about health matters.
"It's very much a concern to us. We want there to be good
health promotion information available to the public; we
want people to have options, but we don't want people to be
taken advantage of. And there is far too much of that going
on today, with misinformation abounding out there or
practitioners dispensing this information. People will take
it as truth and will go and make decisions that are
unhealthful for them."
The $65 public workshops range from Fibromyalgia: Learn to
Recover and Thrive with Dr. Teresa Clarke, to Spirituality
in Medicine with Steven Aung, MD, along with more esoteric
topics such as Psychosomatic Wellness and Discovering Your
Own Pathway to Abundant Wellness.
There is nothing that Dr. Clarke, a medical doctor for 25
years, has seen in the public sessions that she thinks is
harmful or misleading. Her sessions will feature ways to
combat fibromyalgia through mind/body/spirit practices
rather than prescription drugs.
"We have to be open and we have to empower people to find
their own way so that they're not solely relying on the
health-care system as the one and only thing that can help
their health," she says. "If people find their way through
something that may appear a bit unusual to Lloyd Oppel but
they get better from it, all the best to them."
In an article in Canadian Family Physician co-authored by
Oppel, he concedes that people "often feel better" after
using complementary and alternative therapies but says the
whole field is "essentially defined by a belief in dubious
practices, including many that defy well-established tenets
of physics, chemistry and biology."
Should the medical profession and policy-makers at least
look more closely at what works and does not work in the
popular complementary field?
Oppel isn't convinced.
"It's always easy to come off sounding wise by saying more
research is needed," he says. "But for the vast majority of
things that fall under the umbrella of complementary and
alternative medicine, there has been more than enough
research to debunk them already."
Sherman would love to see more people educated about what he
says are the real benefits and drawbacks of integrative
health care. "There is so much misinformation and bias and
fear around it, particularly in the medical community, of
which I am a part.
"There's fear of the unknown. We get trained in medical
school to use drugs and to use certain healing modalities
which certainly have their benefits -- and I use them in my
practice. (But) because we're not trained in traditional
Chinese medicine or uses of herbs, it's very easy to have
misconceptions." |
