What Is Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine: An Operational Typology (Part 3, Using the...

The field of Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine (TCIM), which comprises a vast and diverse range of therapeutic approaches that fall outside of Biomedicine's standard of care, may be classified with reference to six primary categories, or ideal "types." These categories, outlined in an operational typology in the second article of this four-part series, are: (A) Orally Transmitted Ethnomedical Systems and Practices; (B) Codified Ethnomedical Systems and Practices; (C) Non-Ethnomedical Whole Systems; (D) Complementary Therapeutics; (E) Community-Based Therapeutics; and, (F) Integrative Therapeutics.

The current article, the third of the series, uses a series of tangible examples to support users in understanding how to classify specific TCIM therapeutics within Types A through E, within larger health systems contexts. Using three complex TCIM examples briefly introduced in the previous article-a product (turmeric), a practice (acupuncture), and a practitioner group (birthworkers)-this work shows how a particular therapeutic approach may, under distinct circumstances, fall within the boundaries of multiple TCIM types. This illustration highlights how the typology's categories are permeable and dynamic, rather than closed and fixed-and how contextual factors within health systems are essential considerations in the typology's application.