Prince of Wales opening integrative college of medicine

Friday, August 06, 2010 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: wales, integrative medicine, health news

(NaturalNews) Several senior officials from the Prince of Wales' former complementary health foundation are starting a new college of medicine that will include integrative and alternative approaches to health. One of the goals of the college is to teach a holistic approach to health care that can be integrated into the U.K.'s health system.

Many doctors support the new college because they are already using an integrated approach with their patients. But others are far from thrilled about the idea because they say integrative therapies are unproven.

The Guardian recently published an article about the college, citing several anti-integrative doctors who are opposed to including alternative therapies in medical curriculum. According to them, such therapies will put the lives of patients at risk.

But many of the alternative therapies that will likely be integrated into the college's curriculum are already widely used and have proven to be effective. The college also stated that alternative medicine would only be a portion of the curriculum.

The whole idea behind integrative medicine is to combine the best of both conventional and alternative treatments to address individual patient needs. Despite what some may say, many of the alternative treatments used have been independently proven to work, and millions of patients have been successfully treated with them.

"Integrative medicine combines the benefits of both conventional medicine and CAM [complementary alternative medicine] therapies, including the use of nutraceuticals, to benefit the patient's health and well-being," explains Marie-France Muller, M.D., N.D., Ph.D., in her book Colloidal Minerals and Trace Elements: How to Restore the Body's Natural Vitality.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews...