Closing the evidence gap in integrative medicine

The editorial by MacPherson et al on integrative medicine defines it
as
"medicine that reaffirms the importance of the relationship between
practitioner and patient, focuses on the whole person, is informed by
evidence, and makes use of all appropriate therapeutic approaches,
healthcare professionals and disciplines (conventional and complementary)
to
achieve optimal health and healing."

This has as much to do with politics as medicine. "Reaffirming the
importance
of the relationship" followed by "focusing on the whole person" puts the
patient in the driver's seat. And that must be the center of therapies
where
belief plays such a large role in many positive effects.

A bacterium doesn't really care about the relationship between the
patient
and practitioner. Neither does a broken bone.

It is perhaps those problems where the "whole patient" plays a role
in the
etiology of the illness or problem itself that the "whole patient" needs
to be
addressed.

"Optimal health and healing" is spa-speak for feeling good. And the
mind
often plays as much of a role as anything else in achieving that.

Competing interests:
None declared