Integrative Medicine: Combining the Best of Conventional and Complementary Therapies
CEH Horse Report, University of California, Davis
Vol 30 No 1, April 2012
It does not matter whether medicine be old or new, so long as it brings about a cure. It matters not whether theories be eastern or western, so long as they prove to be true. — Jen Hsou Lin, DVM, PhD
Many people have never heard of integrative medicine, but this medical movement has left its imprint on human and veterinary hospitals, universities, and medical schools. Integrative medicine combines conventional Western medicine with complementary therapies such as acupuncture, Traditional Chinese Medicine, herbal remedies and chiropractic. Proponents prefer the term complementary to the terms alternative or holistic to emphasize that such treatments are used with mainstream medicine, not as replacements or alternatives. The ultimate goal is to improve the health of the patient in a more holistic manner.
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is the official term used by the U.S. National Institutes of Health to describe therapies that are outside of standard medicine. This includes acupuncture, chiropractic, Chinese Traditional Medicine, and a host of other practices including herbal remedies, diet and exercise. Some of these systems of complementary medicine are thousands of years old. Although Western science has changed medicine radically over the last 100 years and has come to dominate all thinking about disease and treatment, complementary medicine has been increasingly sought out by the public.
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