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| INTEGRATION OF CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE WITH ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE, ESPECIALLY HOMEOPATHY |
| The World Health Organization has defined health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being. The mere absence of illness or infirmity and its impact on the functioning of mental, physical, and emotional aspects of the individual are instinctively recognized as health. The practice of treating illness is confined to pre-determined and narrow parameters, which define and categorize illness as identified by laid down diagnostic procedures. The subsequent medical treatment is constrained by the restrictions imposed by the findings presented to the physician by diagnostic reports. The veracity of such reports is, at the best of times, of a doubtful value as the correctness of the report is as good as the competence, knowledge, conscientiousness and integrity of the person who is conducting the tests and the conclusions he draws from the evaluation of the results of such tests. Innumerable cases are on record when samples taken from patients are inadvertently switched and erroneous findings are ascribed in the tests for particular patients. The painstaking physical examination by the physician is no longer given prime importance and the results of the test are the only guides applied for the subsequent treatment, often of doubtful value, which the patient hopes and expects would restore him to health. The interaction of the doctor and patient is progressively taking a back seat and the individuality of the sick is submerged by the myriads of diagnostic instruments and gizmos. The excessive reliance on diagnostic tools has made the doctors often lose sight of the patients who should necessarily be their prime concern.
The need for the return to a greater personalized care and treatment is more and more felt by the healers and for those who are harboring great expectations to be healed. With a widespread and readily available access to information through published data and over the internet, in respect of medical conditions, causes and cures, people are more cognizant of the facts applicable to particular ailments which afflict them and the factors responsible for causing those specific conditions. Armed with such knowledge, people have started to take over responsibility of their health in their own hands and in a more serious vein. They are now taking the necessary steps to ensure that their own health and well-being and as well as that of their families is preserved and improved, with a minimum recourse to medication. A combination of balanced diet, hygiene, giving up of excessive imbibing of alcohol, and observing normal hours of going to bed by avoiding late nights has led to more vibrant health and consequently a better quality of life. The conditioning of mind by the doctrine of supermarket buying where various products options are available has made people think in the same manner in the matter of their health. Well calculated and informed choice of a particular discipline of medical treatment over the standard practice of medical service available, off the shelf, is gaining popularity. The adverse consequences of drugs, medical procedures and practices are being evaluated and openly challenged by an ever rising section of well informed consumers of such services. Homeopathy and Allopathy, are good keys in the therapeutic locks. We should not turn a blind eye to any form of harmless therapies, like Ayurveda, Yoga therapy, Accupuncture, Propioceptive Medicine and others. We should not denounce all other therapies as quackery. There can be no such thing as an universally applicable method of treatment known to medicine, and probably there never will be. No doctor can contend that he alone knows what disease really is and how it should be treated. No race, no religion, no institution or for that matter no discipline can boast of an exclusive possession of knowledge. The truth is so vast and comprehensive, that any one individual can have only a partial glimpse of it. In this spirit, we must continue our research into all form of medicine. All medicines are the brain child of man. Man himself is imperfect. Therefore, without doubt, all medicine cannot be always perfect. The great experiment, which mankind has attempted on itself, called medicine, has not yet ended and indeed, like all earthly things, will never be brought to a perfect end, because it is an experiment which deals with the most intricate secret of nature: LIFE. Dr. Hrisikesh Contractor. Consultant Homeopathy Practitioner, Dip.Homeopathy{UK},Fellow of The British Institute of Homeopathy, Member Complementary Therapists Association, {insured to practice} Member Kenya Institute of Alternative Medicine, Member NHS Directory of Complementary & Alternative Practitioners. M.B.,B.S.,F.C.P.S.,M.S.,F.I.C.S.,F.I.C.A.,F.C.A.,F.A.O.A.{Switzerland} Retired Senior Consultant Surgeon {General, Trauma, Laparoscopic} Past Chairman of Kenya Medical Association, {Western & Nyanza Div.} Mobile Tel: 27966 628885 Clinics at Berkhamsted, Chesham &Wimpole Street, {Off Harley Street.} |