Holistic medicine does not necessarily mean going to an obscure place to see an old man with a beard who will hold your hand, measure your pulse and tell you what’s wrong with you. That’s not holistic medicine. Neither is it an alternative to modern medicine. So what exactly is holistic medicine?
It was South African philosopher Jan Christian Smith who first coined the term ‘holistic medicine’. He was of the opinion that a human being is much more than a collection of physical parts. Holistic medicine, at least in terms of the way it’s meant to be, is for a doctor and his team to care for the patient physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. What that essentially means is that a patient with a severe heart or kidney problem needs more than medicine or surgery for his ailment. He needs to comforted, his will strengthened, he needs to be given hope and he needs to feel loved. If you have ever seen Robin Williams in the movie Patch Adams, you will know what I’m referring to. Not that it has to carried to such theatrical extremes, but that’s the general idea.
Allow me to ask you a question. What would your healthcare plan approved doctor do if you went to him with a headache or a backache? A painkiller to control the pain. Maybe sleeping tablets to help you sleep. A doctor who practices holistic medicine would talk to you ( and maybe hold your hand ) to find out what made you get the headache or backache. He would give you natural medicine to cure the root cause of the problem, if any. If the problem is mental, or spiritual, he would talk to you in the manner of a therapist, to help you face and solve problems like stress, irregular sleeping and eating habits. This would be in addition to giving you medicine like any other doctor, for your pain and immediate recovery.
Ayurveda, acupuncture, naturopathy and other alternative medical treatments are not holistic by themselves. These treatments become holistic because the doctors or experts who treat patients using these treatments are using a holistic approach towards a patient. Treating patients as a whole, instead of a sick kidney or a bad back. That is holistic medicine.
It’s doubtful if you can find a Patch Adams clone in the hallways of a corporate Managed Care Health Center. But you can find these practitioners in the Ayurvedic clinics in India and Acupuncture treatment centers in China and Thailand. Which is why medical tourism is suddenly so popular in these countries. If we could import these Holistic doctors over here, it would be much easier, but they wouldn’t be true holistic caregivers if they accepted the lure of the modern West. So we become medical tourists, catch a plane and go to a small town in a foreign country. Because we’re badly in need of holistic treatment for both mind and body.
To learn more about holistic treatment, medical tourism and New Medical Horizons Inc., please visit our website http://www.newmedicalhorizons.com/