Integrative Medicine

Within the past few years a new phrase has popped up in contemporary language: Integrative Medicine. In a cover story in USA TODAY, Andrew Weil, MD is quoted as its leading proponent. The word essentially means the integration of traditional clinical medical practices with alternative and herbal remedies. While I applaud Dr. Weil for being the bridge, we need to truly reevaluate all allopathic procedures. We need to continue to examine all alternatives, viewing them from a real holistic viewpoint.

By holistic, I simply mean taking into consideration the entire human system, something which specialization, through the paradigm of medical education, has lost. The standard medical profession, driven by the money and power of the pharmaceutical behemoths, as well as the mindset of most medical doctors, which in too many cases is also money and status, has indeed been clouded from its noble intention of caring for the health of people.

The major problem in health care today, is that since it has so much inertia driven by corporate interests, any alternative introduced into the medical establishment is always suspect--especially when it threatens a billion dollar patented medicine!

The other area of concern is over specialization. I was recently hospitalized for what I assumed to be a heart attack. What was amazing to me was that the hospital took my word for it...from the ER on!

I "thought" I was having a heart attack, so the ER people assumed so as well, and I was placed in the cardiac section of this hospital. Cardiac specialists came to see me. A few even suggested angioplasty. From that point on, I was a "heart patient."

When I complained of heartburn I was given Maalox! Not once was I looked at as a whole person. Simply amazing! Fact is, I did not have a heart problem at all, but it took them five days (and a $12,000 bill) to all agree!

Sorry, I am not interested in the medicines (poisons) dished out by the local medical center. If the Integrated physician is truly integrated, he/she will then be holistic, so why the need for Integrative in the first place? In fact, I'd rather see the word "conscious" used instead. That is what is really needed.

While I see the word "integrative" as a bridge, I want a medical doctor to look at me as a person, not as an automobile. A bad starter in my VW has nothing to do with wheel alignment. They indeed are separate. Mechanical.

Not so with my body that has veins, arteries, and a chemical and electrical connection to every other part of my body, on many levels including energetic, and many believe spiritual.

I may not have an answer to Board Certification within the medical profession, for I do realize that practitioners must have an in-depth knowledge. However, I sure want a medical practitioner to see me as a whole person and use a procedure with a holistic approach.

"Integrative" may be a start, but we still need to look at the whole person--always.

Virato has been the editor and publisher of New Frontier Magazine, an internationally recognized journal of new paradigm thinking for 25 years, and for the past ten years, editor of Asheville Magazine. He is also the host of a weekly radio program, VIRATO LIVE! broadcast on Clear Channel's radio station WPEK, 880 AM, The Revolution, Asheville, North Carolina and beamed to the world on the Internet. He has presented programs of consciousness world-wide, including 15 years in Russia.