GRADUAL AND PROGRESSIVE ADOPTION OF ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

Despite the public's reported widespread use of acupuncture, herbs and other complementary and alternative medicines, many physicians lack the information they need to counsel their patients about such treatments.

Physicians are fielding lots of questions from their patients about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), and they would like to know enough about these various practices to be able to steer patients away from harmful treatments and, to a lesser extent, towards ones that might be beneficial.

Nearly one quarter of the physicians said they had used CAM and roughly two-thirds said they had patients who used CAM.

Yet only one third of the physicians said they felt "somewhat comfortable" discussing CAM use with their patients and only 35% said they had "somewhat positive" feelings about such discussions, study findings indicate. The remaining physicians felt uncomfortable or neutral or had negative or neutral feelings.

Underscoring these findings was the fact that 84% of the doctors indicated an interest in learning more about complementary and alternative medicines.

Overall, doctors who said they used one or more CAM were reportedly seven times more likely to recommend CAM to their patients. Further, those interested in learning more about CAM were more than four times more likely than their disinterested peers to recommend CAM to their patients.
Archives of Internal Medicine May 27, 2002;162:1176-1181

DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT: This is encouraging news. Increasing numbers of traditional physicians are realising that the traditional paradigm does not work and they are seeking options that will treat disease at the cause.

Doctors are just not happy with their current circumstances. They are becoming more and more inclined to consider alternatives, and believe me, there are major ones planned for them on this site (www.mercola.com).

I hope to help most of these doctors understand how simple it is to help people recover from disease by applying basic health principles.