From: Ronan Conroy <[log in to unmask]>
To:
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Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2012 8:29 AM
Subject: Re: Teaching of complementary medicine to undergraduate medical students
One important aspect of complementary medicine is the amount of money that people spend on it, with generally no reimbursement either from the state or insurance. We take this as a starting point and ask the students to consider why people might spend sizeable amounts of their own money on complementary medicine. Among the themes that we discuss are the roles of the patient and professional in scientific medicine and in complementary medicine, the approach to diagnosis/case formulation, and the question of who defines the problem - the doctor (let me be the judge of that!) or the patient.
Medical students can learn a lot by looking at a highly profitable health system that runs parallel to scientific medicine, and should ask themselves what we should be doing in scientific medicine to address the shortcomings that send people off to seek complementary medicine.
r
On 2012 MFómh 18, at 22:43, Margaret MacDougall wrote:
>
Dear list members
>
> As a non-clinician, I would like to improve my understanding of current perspectives in different countries on the teaching of the principles and practise of complementary medicine to undergraduate medical students. Do perspectives vary across countries and are their instances where such teaching is taboo?
Ronán Conroy
[log in to unmask]Associate Professor
Division of Population Health Sciences
Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
Beaux Lane House
Dublin 2