Experts Talking About Natural Medicine

The concept of natural medicine is not new. In fact, Thomas Edison once said, “The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.” Today, more and more traditional medicine practitioners are embracing an integrative approach to healing. David M. Eisenberg, MD, Director of the Division for Research and Education in Complementary and Integrative Medical Therapies and the Osher Institute at Harvard Medical School says, “I am a great advocate for what I see as a triangular relationship…the MD, the patient, the alternative provider in an open circle of communication.”

The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years. Most people believe that aging is universal but there are biological organisms that never age. – Deepak Chopra, MD

Eisenberg contends that consumers, particularly those between 30 and 55, are powering the growth of alternative medicine. According to Eisenberg’s 1997 testimony before the U.S. Senate, one out of every two boomers uses non-conventional therapies, and what boomers seem to favor is the safe, noninvasive nature of alternative treatments.

Dr. David Edelberg, founder and former chairman of the integrated medicine clinic, WholeHealth in Chicago, says that most users of alternative medicine don’t want to give up their conventional health care. “When we opened our center, we found people weren’t giving up their family doctors, they simply wanted physician-supervised alternative medicine. They wanted a center that had two toolboxes,” says Edelberg.

And it would appear that more and more conventional doctors are coming around to accepting alternative therapies. “More papers are appearing on alternative medicine in conventional medicine journals; there’s a National Institutes of Health division on it; and they themselves are experiencing it,” says Edelberg. “We regularly have doctors coming into our clinic for chiropractic or acupuncture or sending their patients over…Cardiologists are taking antioxidants and vitamins, and psychiatrists are beginning to realize that St. John’s wort actually works.”

Dr. Roger Jahnke, doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, chairperson of both the Qigong Department at the Santa Barbara (Calif.) College of Oriental Medicine and the National Qigong Association, and author of “The Healer Within,” says that the real news about the growth of alternative medicine in the West is a shifting of responsibility from the doctor to the patient. He says the key is that we’re finally realizing how the client, the customer, the patient can also do something, which amounts to not only better health care, but also genuine prevention. “In fact,” says Jahnke, ”if you do something in a timely way, you might not need to be a patient at all.”

And some say that the next breakthrough in alternative medicine involves adding quantum science to the mix. According to Dr. Amit Goswami, a quantum physicist who was featured in the film “What The Bleep Do We Know?!” and is Professor Emeritus of physics at the University of Oregon’s Institute of Theoretical Science, has no doubt that quantum medicine is the medicine of the future. “Quantum physics has changed all the equations involved in healing,” says Goswami. “With quantum physics, all experiences can be included. In this way, the mental and the physical can work in parallel when mediated by consciousness.”

It would appear that alternative medicine is no longer on the fringe of health care, but rather is the next quantum leap in health and wellness. And that spells good news for those of us who choose to step up and build careers as alternative health practitioners. To find out more about how you can develop your own meaningful career in the medicine of the future, simply click the link below to speak to an academic advisor.

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