Integrative Medicine on the Road

It is time to learn more about integrative medicine.  What is integrative medicine and what it may come?

Clinicians and researchers are increasing using the term integrative medicine to refer to the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) with conventional bio-medicine.  However, combination medicine (CAM added to conventional) is not integrative.  Integrative medicine represents a higher-order system of care that emphasizes wellness and healing of the entire person (bio-psycho-socio-spiritual dimensions) as primary goals, drawing on both conventional and CAM approaches in the context of a supportive and effective physician-patient relationship.  In this view, health is an emergent property of the person as a complex living system.  Thus, unlike bio-medical research that typically examines parts of health care and parts of the individual, one at a time, but not the complete system, integrative outcomes research advocates the study of the whole. The whole system includes the patient-provider relationship, multiple conventional and CAM treatments, and the philosophical context of care as the intervention.

Integrative medicine is a system of care that considers health (or disease) as an emergent property of the person in an environmental context, conceptualized as an intact, indivisible dynamic system. Integrative medicine is a complex dynamic, higher-order system of systems, conventional and CAM.  As such, the life domains that medical care and medical outcomes research must address extend far beyond clinical laboratory test results or lesions in specific organs. - American Medical Association

However, most people still think of integrative medicines as combination of conventional Western medicine with safe, evidence-based complementary and alternative therapies to focus on the whole person to achieve optimal wellness where the patient also has a greater sense of personal control. What about you?

We have to acknowledge that health is not only the result of good medical care, but also of adequate housing, sanitation, and education.  The government has to ensure us the right to access to medical care even all other resources fail, either by enacting or enforcing legislation designed to protect both the individual and the health care system. Then, the concept of integrative medicine encompasses may not be only the health of the individual, but also of society as a whole.

The overview of Integrative Medicine should be reviewed and discussed as long as we do not stop finding the answer for good health, effective means of diagnosis and treatment. Do you think so?