Complementary and Alternative Medicine

The days when medical schools and other healthcare institutions could afford to ignore the existence of CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) are long gone. CAM is a growth industry. Whatever one's view of the nature, efficacy, or validity of individual CAM therapies, it is clearly undesirable for conventional practitioners to be in ignorance of treatments which are being used by more than half of their patients. Both conventional and complementary medicine have the patient's well-being as their primary concern. From that standpoint, there can be no argument for isolationist, defensive attitudes which leave patients uncertain and confused. To the contrary, there is every incentive to develop improved mutual understanding and enhanced inter-professional communication and cooperation. Enhanced education is an important step along the way, and to that end, the purpose of this book is to provide basic information on general CAM therapies for the medical student in a balanced attempt to support the integration of CAM into medical and other healthcare-related curricula. -- from Preface.