"There are some very good things about Western medicine, but many times it is used to treat patients across the board. Everybody gets the same treatment. Healing depends on the person, and everyone needs custom-designed health care. I let patients talk for the first hour or so, so they can unload and get it all out. They talk, they cry, and from that point on I go into my complete physical, which combines Eastern and Western diagnostic tools. Using Eastern principles in treatment is not some fly-by-night, silly little therapy. It's not New Agey; it's Old Agey. It's been around for more than 2,500 years."
—Carolyn Jaffe, nationally certified acupuncturist,
registered with the Pennsylvania State Department of
Osteopathic Medicine, Diplomat of acupuncture
The birth of integrative medicine will force the medical establishment to form previously unheard of alliances with practitioners once shunned by Western medicine. Transforming the course of our nation's curative path, our sick care system will become obsolete. New strategies, blending the spiritual, emotional, and natural with high-tech procedures, will evolve. Although it may seem overwhelming, this change is close at hand.
OUR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IS NOT EMULATED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD
People in the U.S. think of Western medicine as the standard method of care, often assuming that the rest of the world practices medicine as we do. In actuality, estimates reveal that only TO to 30 percent of the world's health care is delivered by conventional Western methods; the remaining 70 to 90 percent is rendered by alternative modes of treatment.12
THE BIRTH OF INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE: GESTATION, TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS
"Most of the people who come to me are ready for something different because they have tried what doesn't work. We don't have a health care system; we have an illness system. One thing integrative medicine can do is teach people. And that will begin to provide the tools for change." —Sandra McLanahan, M.D., executive medical director of the Integral Health Center in Buckingham, Virginia, and physician to the world-renowned spiritual healer Reverend Sri Swami Satchidananda
1971 New York Times columnist James Reston brings the concept of acupuncture and Chinese herbs to America's shores.
1983 The Alternative Health Plan is established in California by Steve and Sherry Gorman. The company's goal is to provide medical plans offering freedom of choice and including coverage for alternative and complementary medicine such as acupuncture, massage, and herbal remedies.
1986 The Oriental Medical Center in Los Angeles studies the efficacy of Chinese herbs and acupuncture in treating ARC and AIDS.
1992 The nation's first federally funded alternative medicine HIV public health clinic project gets underway in San Francisco.
The Office of Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health, is created by Congress. This is the first federal agency focusing on alternative treatments.
1993 Harvard University researcher Dr. David Eisenberg releases findings in the New England Journal of Medicine on Americans' use of alternative therapies. This landmark study reports that one in three Americans used at least one form of unconventional therapy.
American Western Life Insurance Company offers its first wellness plan, which promotes self-care and reimbursements for visits to alternative practitioners.
1994 A Gallup poll finds that 17 percent of Americans use herbal supplements, a 14 percent increase over the previous year.
The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act is passed by Congress, deregulating herbal remedies.
The first two specialty research centers—Bastyr University AIDS Research Center, Seattle, and Minneapolis Medical Research Center for Addictions Study—are established by the NIH to study the effects of alternative therapies. Health insurance giant Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Washington and Alaska launches a year long pilot program, Alterna Path, which provides coverage for alternative treatments.
1995 Kaiser Permanente, the country's largest health maintenance organization, opens the doors of its first alternative medicine clinic in Vallejo, California.
Harvard Medical School hosts the first-of-its-kind mind/body conference for doctors, who can receive continuing education credits for attending.
Eight specialty research centers have now joined the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine in its efforts to study alternative medicine.
The State of Washington passes a law requiring all insurance companies to cover the services of licensed alternative practitioners.
1996 The State of Oregon follows Washington's lead and presents voters with the Health-care Freedom Initiative, a plan similar to that of Washington State, but it fails at the polls because of a technicality.
The first-of-its-kind nationwide study of patient perceptions of Chinese medicine treatments is conducted under the direction of the Traditional Acupuncture Institute in Columbia, Maryland.
The first clinical study of the effects of the Chinese herb dong quai on postmenopausal women is conducted by Kaiser Permanente's Division of Research. A record number of volunteers express interest in participating.
Acupuncture needles are removed from the FDA's list of investigational devices, making them accepted treatment devices, no longer considered experimental.
One of the first undergraduate courses in unconventional medicine is offered at the University of California, Davis.
The Asian Diet Pyramid is released.
1997 National Institutes of Health Office of Alternative Medicine and the Office of Dietary Supplements are collaborating to fund research on the benefits of the herb commonly known as St. John's Wort as a potential treatment for depression.
National Institutes of Health panel endorses acupuncture therapy as an effective treatment for certain types of pain, nausea, as a surgical anesthesia, for pregnancy, and to relieve the side effects of chemotherapy. The panel also says that there is evidence that acupuncture may be effective for menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, drug addiction, stroke, and fibromyalgia.
Teaching Alternative Treatments at
Traditional Medical Schools
Eastern applications and Western alternatives have been quietly creeping into the mainstream Western medical practices. Hospitals around the country now offer some form of alternative (the term used to define anything unproven in Western medical terms) choice for patients. Western medical schools are adding integrative medicine courses, for example, blending Chinese medicine with Western therapies, to their once conservative curricula. Therapies until recently considered offbeat and unproven—such as acupuncture, meditation, herbology, energy balancing, spirituality, and various cultural traditions—now complement traditional training. Conservative Columbia University has created the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Center for Alternative/Complementary Medicine. Harvard Medical School offers students an intensive course on alternative medical practices.
According to information from the Office of Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health, there are more than twenty-six prominent medical schools now offering courses in alternative medicine. Yale School of Medicine, Temple University, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Columbia University College of Physicians, Emory University School of Medicine, and the University of Virginia Medical School are among them.
FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
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