American society and culture are very much dependent upon Western allopathic medicine which relies on scientific proof of whether healthcare practices are deemed as safe and effective. The problem herein lies that many of the ancient time-proven methods don’t fit nicely to allopathic medicine’s gold standard of random controlled trials (RCT). It is difficult to quantify results for methods that rely upon the practitioner to assess the patient at the time of treatment and decide how much or how little pressure to apply or other variables that cannot really be controlled during treatments such as emotions, outcomes or experience of the practitioner and/or the patient.

I feel from my experiences with allopathic medical practitioners, that there is much resistance to sharing the healthcare market with alternative healthcare options such as massage, acupuncture, and meditation among others. I think that most allopathic medical doctors try to stay true to their oath of trying to help people and do no harm in the process. However, my understanding is that medical doctors are trained to follow a flowchart of recommended protocols.

Massage, yoga, meditation and many other complimentary alternative practices fall way behind use of pharmaceuticals and sometimes surgery for many common ailments and injuries. Let’s be honest and accept that most people don’t go to their medical doctor with the expectation of nutritional advice, a prescription for more activity or the suggestion of a massage to relief mental as well as physical stress. People often go to their doctor to get meds to fix or mask their underlying root causes and then go about whatever might be causing their issues to begin with. So I think that the healthcare industry is only part of the problem/solution with the other part being how many people look at their healthcare as someone else’s responsibility that can be fixed with a pill or surgery. Look how many people are in the waiting room at medical doctor’s office compared to how many are waiting for a massage at a local Hand & Stone massage business.

With many medical experts calling for more studies and more research, I feel it is mostly an excuse not to promote other alternative therapies. The American Medical Association along with many prestigious research universities have vast resources to conduct whatever studies they care to or rather, care not to invest upon.  The American healthcare system, can be debated as either severely broken or also seemingly miraculous for others. Regardless, US healthcare is an over $4 trillion dollar a year economic powerhouse that will only continue to grow with or without acceptance of alternative therapies.

Be Well, Stay Healthy, Be Wise.

References:

https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/explore-healing-practices/massage-therapy/what-does-research-say-about-massage-theraphy (Links to an external site.)

https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2020/04/03/health-spending (Links to an external site.)

https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/licensure-complementary-and-alternative-practitioners/2011-06

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Jim Moltzan

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