Physicians and Healers — Unwitting Partners in Health Care

Abstract

ALTERNATIVE medicine has long played an important part in the care of people with health problems in this country. Although there has been no comprehensive assessment of its use, there are good reasons to believe that alternative medicine has many adherents among all social classes. Most physicians are unaware of its popularity, much less that many of their own patients are also being cared for by practitioners of alternative medicine.A Muddle of Names, Beliefs, and PracticesThere is no widely accepted term for the practices grouped under the rubric of alternative medicine. "Holistic medicine" (or "wholistic medicine") is a . . .