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Integrating Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Healthcare
Integrating Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Healthcare
Thursday, 14 July 2016: 16:00-17:30
Location: Hörsaal 32 (Main Building)
RC15 Sociology of Health (host committee) Language: English
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has become ever more important in many modern societies – with a fast-growing range of users, increasing numbers of practitioners and a rising proportion of healthcare spending on this area. At the same time, though, in terms of potential philosophical and other conflicts between CAM and medical orthodoxy, it is very important that “the baby is not thrown out with the bathwater” and that CAM is employed in a selective and synergistic way with the best of conventional health care to the benefit of the public.
This leads to several questions about how this might be achieved through integration in order to attain a desirable future: What is the current comparative evidence base? How methodologically should the relative strengths and weaknesses of CAM and medical orthodoxy be evaluated? Should there be greater coordination of the providers of CAM and orthodox medicine? What issues are posed in these circumstances by multi-professional working and communication? How should CAM and orthodox medicine be funded in terms of public and private sector resourcing? Should CAM practitioners be integrated into mainstream health services? Or is it more effective if CAM is integrated through delivery by orthodox practitioners? What implications does this have for education and regulation? Under what conditions might integration be most likely to occur? And, crucially, how might this impact on users?
Abstracts are very welcome on these questions and related themes, focused on one or more countries, in this regular paper presentation session.
Session Organizers:
Chair: