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Conventional vs. Alternative Health Care:

Which Approach is Right for You?

Many of us today are confused about what the best options may be for our health care. We know that medical science is routinely responsible for miracles in health care, but we also know that conventional medical care can only go so far. And we wonder about “alternative” or “complementary” approaches to health care. If these approaches are so good, wouldn't our doctors know about them and be using them?

In fact, there is no one way of understanding health care that works best. As in most other things in life, what is needed is balance, and integration of both ancient and modern approaches to medicine.

In the Native American traditions, we speak of “Medicine” with a capital “M” as distinguished from “medicine” with a small “m,” by which we generally mean the care of the physical body only. The Native American approach is to see the individual as a whole person: body, mind, and spirit. We recognize that all disease has physical, mental, spiritual, and social components.

Medical Costs Are Spiraling Out of Control

Our health care system is in economic collapse, partly because of a decision made early in the twentieth century to rely solely on technology.

High tech medical care, as wonderful as it is, has become so expensive that many of the people who need it most are unable to pay for it.

All across the country, including in our region, hospitals are facing bankruptcy.

Power to the People

Over the last couple of decades, we've seen a growing grass-roots movement away from conventional health care towards alternative health care.

Surveys have shown that fully a third of Americans are going to alternative care providers, and most don't tell their doctors.

Fortunately, things are changing. Some medical schools are beginning to provide courses in complementary therapies that recognize the mind/body connection. In our area, the Center for Integrative Medicine at UPMC has been a pioneer in integrating natural healing practices with conventional medical care.

Total Health

As a society, we are finally beginning to realize that total health means body, mind and spirit. People want health care providers that treat them as a whole person, not medical mechanics who just see them as bodies to be maintained or fixed when they break down. We do need medical mechanics for so many things, especially emergency care, but that is just one aspect of who we are as human beings. We have hopes and dreams, we love, we have deep spiritual beliefs, and we are connected and interconnected in a vast and deeply meaningful web of life.

A total health approach takes all of this into account.

So to answer the question: “which is right for you - conventional or alternative care?” we would say that both are. Both have their place in a total health approach that is holistic, looking at the whole person, and both can and must work together.

Dr. Lewis Mehls-Madrona, M.D., former Medical Director at the Center for Complementary Medicine at UPMC has gone so far as to suggest that perhaps every community needs a healer as much as it needs a doctor, and that medicine men and women should teach in medical schools alongside priests, ministers, and Buddhist nuns.

Serving Mercer County, Pennsylvania

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