Columnist Bill Benda, MD: Tough Love on Who Owns "Integrative Medicine" and on Associated "MD-Bashing"

Summary: Bill Benda, MD, weighs in forcefully on the recent series of Integrator articles, guest columns and commentaries on who owns the term "integrative medicine" and some of the attendant name-calling. It's been a little ugly, seeing the disparate perceptions, hurt feelings and psycho-spiritual-economic rifts between the diverse parties with a stake in the integrative practice movement. Benda focuses on two points he feels must be made, once and for all, regarding "allopathically-centered integrative medicine" and the need to end "MD bashing" by naturopathic doctors and other complementary healthcare practitioners. Benda's addition to this difficult exchange reminded me of what may be the best therapeutic course for those wishing to take this healing seriously: the knowledge, skills and values in the 1994 Pew-Fetzer Task Force work on practitioner-to-practitioner relationships.

Bill Benda, MD - board member for both AANP and AHMA

The recent series of Integrator articles and guest commentary on who owns "integrative medicine" have strongly evidenced the disparate perceptions, hurt feelings, and psycho-spiritual-economic rifts between the diverse parties with a stake in the integrative practice movement. (See column by Peter Glidden, ND, commentary by Tom Ballard, ND, plus others noted at the bottom of this column.) These columns and articles provoked Bill Benda, MD to try to set a couple of things straight, once and for all.

Clarifying a Point and Taking a Stand on Another
in the (Sometimes Acrimonious) Dialogue Over "Integrative Medicine"

- Bill Benda, MD

I’ve been following the thread on “integrative medicine” over the past few issues, and I believe it is time to clarify one particular point, and take a stand with regards to another.

The clarification point is that integrative medicine is, and always will be, allopathically-centered, simply by the fact that it is the unplanned, and often unwanted, child of our aging medical paradigm. It was conceived by allopathic physicians and resides academically within conventional medical colleges. I was a part of its creation at the University of Arizona, and have quite precise memories of the pain and expectations surrounding its birth.

	"The clarification point is that integrative medicine is, and always will be, allopathically- centered, simply by the fact that it is the unplanned, and often unwanted, child of our aging medical paradigm." - Bill Benda, MD

Denunciations began immediately from conventional and unconventional quarters, with one exception – the American public, who wanted then and is asking still for us to stop complaining about each other and get down to the business of providing decent healthcare. No one is objecting that naturopathic medicine is naturopathically-centered, or that Traditional Chinese Medicine is Chinese-centered, or that homeopathic medicine is homeopathy-centered. The time has come to move beyond lamentations and accusations and get on with the business of saving healthcare. King of the Mountain is a child’s game.

My second point is far more fundamental and obligatory to embrace: The time has come to end this perpetual denunciation of integrative medicine’s sire, conventional medicine. Now. Yes, it is an indisputable fact that a significant portion of allopathic care holds the potential, and the reality, of great harm. It is also true that our current healthcare paradigm has fallen under the sway of a capitalistic economy, to its detriment and forthcoming decline. But paradigms fall because universal law states they eventually must, not because they are inherently corrupt or malevolent.

There is no truth to the preposition that allopathic medicine is good only for trauma and a little acute care – or that naturopathic or any other medicine is the only true answer to our healthcare crisis. Those who preach such risk becoming infected with the internal pestilence that has brought conventional medicine to its knees – human arrogance based on the fallacy of entitlement. The fact, the unequivocal fact, is that medical doctors are for the vast part caring, intelligent, best-intentioned people who perform as honestly and effectively to their level of training as any other practitioner, whether in emergency medicine or homeopathic medicine, radiology or Reiki. Allopathic medicine holds exceptional beauty because it holds exceptional risk - in my 30 years I have witnessed great miracles as well as great injury. One really cannot ever separate the two.

"Those who insist upon hanging on to an anti-MD polemic will be the ones eventually going away – there is little use for such energy in an already precarious world." - Benda

I find it quite distressing that members of professions that have been marginalized throughout much of their history find the need to marginalize another profession that is doing its clumsy best to take root and grow. No, of course integrative physicians do not, after five to ten years of intense conventional training, possess the knowledge and learned skills of the naturopathic physician, or TCM practitioner, or homeopathic clinician. Such training isn’t fully available yet in our medical schools, nor would one necessarily have the freedom to pursue four more years of study if it were. But to employ such locution as “moron, sophomoric, watered-down,” as well as “bearers of a long rifle and smallpox blanket” does not devalue integrative medicine, but instead diminishes those who choose to cast forth such words of animosity. If naturopathic medicine or ayurvedic medicine or any other philosophy of healing and healthcare wishes to serve the greater good, I suggest they step forward and help guide this new experiment called integrative medicine – teach us how to provide quality care rather then keep telling us we can’t, at least not as well as you. Because in the first place, we integrative physicians are not going to go away. And in the second, by the very virtue of choosing a path not yet accepted by the profession that spawned us, we are the ones most likely and most willing to support and defend you, our unconventional peers.

	" (for) naturopathic medicine, an understanding of and forgiveness for past sins, real and imagined, is the only appropriate response to medical doctors ..." - Benda

What will instead come to pass is that those who insist upon hanging on to an anti-MD polemic will be the ones eventually going away – there is little use for such energy in an already precarious world. Naturopathic medicine, as one exemplar, is at the tipping point of its own success, and an understanding of and forgiveness for past sins, real and imagined, is the only appropriate response to medical doctors who are simply trying to find a way to practice a profession deserving of respect while addressing internal wounds inflicted by their education. “They” are not the true enemy, my friends. Just ask Pogo.

So enough rhetoric. The time has come for all boards of directors, and presidents, and executive directors, and members of our professional organizations, as well as medical college presidents, and journal editors, and natural product executives, to put an end to this destructive rankism whenever and wherever it arises. Our students, in their maturity, have already chosen to enter collaborative relationships with each other regardless of title, so the bottom line is that this change is going to happen within a generation, with us or without us.

I suggest we choose "with."

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• Guest Column: Peter Glidden, ND, Lashes Out Against His Idea of MD-led "Integrative Medicine," July 2, 2008.
• Regarding Drop-Value, Antecedents and Whether It's All About MDs: David Rakel's Integrative Medicine, July 7, 2008.
• Your Comments: Bradly Jacobs, MD, MPH & Christy Lee Engel, ND, LAc on Rakel's Integrative Medicine, July 16, 2008.
• Time for a Heretical Model? Ballard, Quinn, Manahan & Simpson on 'Integrative Medicine,'" July 28, 2008.
• Your Comments: Riley on origins of "integrative medicine," plus ... August 6, 2008.
  
• Can Chiropractic Be "Integrative Medicine?" A Patient Survey and a University President Weigh In, August 26, 2008.
• Toward an Integrated History of the Integrative Practice Movement, August 28, 2008.
• Origins, #1: Marty Rossman, MD Expands on the Shared History of the Integrative Practice Movement, August 31, 2008
• Origins #2: Peter D'Adamo, ND on the Musical Inspiration for "Integrative Medicine" in 1979, September, 1, 2008.