Attitudes of modern and traditional medical practitioners toward cooperation

Between 1985 and 1987 a total of 103 modern and 91 traditional medical practitioners were interviewed in seven towns in northwestern and central Ethiopia. The main aim was to assess their attitudes toward the legitimacy of each other's medical system and, especially, toward the question of cooperation or integration between modern and traditional medicine. It was found that the majority of the two groups of health workers believed that cooperation between the two systems of medicine would be useful and that they themselves would be willing to participate in such cooperative efforts. Those willing to cooperate suggested that traditional healers be (1) brought into the existing, official health-care settings, (2) given regular government wages for their services, and (3) guided and supervised by their modern counterparts.