Open AccessDiversity, the Individual, and Proof of Efficacy: Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Medical Education
Author(s) -
Constance M. Park
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
american journal of public health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.284
H-Index - 264
eISSN - 1541-0048
pISSN - 0090-0036
DOI - 10.2105/ajph.92.10.1568
Subject(s) - diversity (politics) , certainty , curriculum , variety (cybernetics) , probabilistic logic , medicine , alternative medicine , medical education , regimen , medical research , medline , engineering ethics , psychology , family medicine , epistemology , computer science , pathology , political science , law , pedagogy , philosophy , artificial intelligence , engineering
Patients will always have access to a variety of possibly effective, but unproved, therapies directed at maintaining health or treating illness. And there will always be complex, potentially therapeutic regimens that cannot be adequately tested for financial, ethical, or methodological reasons. Furthermore, even after adequate study of a given regimen, there will always be the fundamental uncertainty of medical practice: the fact that epidemiological research produces probabilistic results that cannot predict with certainty the best treatment for the single unique patient before us. The exploration of complementary and alternative medicine topics in the medical school curriculum helps to elucidate the complex and uncertain nature of medical practice, sharpens skills for clinical decisionmaking, increases cultural sensitivity, and provides ideas for future research.