The alternative health sector is wrong to characterise doctors as “uncaring” and of failing to consider the psychological dimension of patients’ problems, says professor Edzard Ernst.
Writing in The Guardian the recently retired and high controversial professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University says: “Many promoters of “integrated medicine” seem to think that clinicians are either caring or scientific. The undeniable fact, however, is that good doctors are both: they care for their patients (this involves taking into account “psychological reasons” for their actions) and they realise how important science is for optimal healthcare.”
Ernst adds that “the notion of ‘either/or’ is nonsense which only serves those who want to smuggle unproven or disproven treatments into the NHS by calling it ‘integrated medicine’.”
