The
stupidity of assuming we are alternative medicine
I was today
shocked to read a bunch of idiots have lobbied us to be part of AUYSH (for
people who don’t know AUYSH- it is the clubbing of all magical medicine from India
and one nonsense from Germany). This is what happens if people who are lobbying
and in the politics of associations are uneducated and have a poor
understanding of medicine.
There are
only 2 types of medicine-1. Modern medicine and 2. traditional medicine. Modern
medicine is an evolution of traditional medicine and it should be not called
allopathy or English medicine. What do I mean by evolution of traditional
medicine? Modern medicine developed as we find more science in our traditional
methods of treating. Classical example is treatment of malaria using chloroquine.
It is a common method of treating
malaria derived from traditional knowledge and it transformed into modern
medicine because it has been put through scientific rigor rather than just believing
it to be the treatment because someone in the 2 century or some sidhar wrote it
in 10 century.
Physiotherapy
is part of modern medicine. Why? Because we don’t believe in the five element
theory of disease as in acupuncture or Ayurveda, or some fantastic pseudo-science
–“like cures like” (homeopathy) or vertebral subulxation (magic from north America-
chiropractic) and follow modern
physiology. We do trials to confirm and deny our science (read Cochrane summaries). But you will not read those in traditional
medicine, were the founders and the bibles which are written in a different era
is still considered as the truth. Modern
medicine is dynamic; it changes with new findings and research.
So, pray
who are we. We are should be and are department of physical
medicine and rehabilitation. We are part
of a team of health provider including physicians, surgeons (as in acute
physical medicine- example, cardiorespiratory PT), with OT, clinical psychologist
and others as in case of Neuro-rehabilitation. I hope I don’t have to elaborate
on ortho-PT (where I believe we should be primary health care providers in case
of cold orthopedics and part of the team in traumatolgy). We should be striving
for these issues. We should learn to be primary source of knowledge in these
areas and work as part of the medical team. A classical example is dental. T they
are part of the modern medicine and at the same time have created a knowledge
base of dentistry which is unique to them (remember some of their principles will
be similar to ortho).
Sensible people should educate our presidents, prime ministers and other cabinet ministers of our association
