A clinical approach to alternative medicine

Our patients receive and will continue to receive alternative therapies regardless of our stand on the issue. While scientific scrutiny may slowly bring a few of them into the medical mainstream, the number of alternative techniques is unlikely to dwindle significantly. Primary care physicians can help their patients deal with them by knowing the local alternative medical community, by gentle counseling about the potential for harm in certain techniques, and by steering patients toward practitioners with a reasonable scope of practice that matches the patient's belief system. In this way, the physician may confidently support the patient's belief in the healing power of whatever therapy--alternative or traditional--is chosen.