Percy Seiger: Conventional & Alternative medicines are the various limbs of the same strategy. Which is conventional which is alternative should not be the focus of a good physician, a good physician's duty is not to cure diseases but to create a healthy society where each of the inahabitants are healthy and devoid of diseases. He should not be focusing on what is the means, but the end should serve the purpose. The question has only academic relevance, raise controversies, and knowledge of which is of no use to an ailing patient. However, for Academic interest, conventional medicine is the medicine which is the convention as of now i.e allopathic or osteopathic. Alternative is all that is alternative to that. It has no connotation that conventional medicine is the main stream of medicine, because from period of Vedas when Ayurveda and all branches including surgery were prevalent, till Hypocrate's and Herodotus' interactions with Charaka and Shushrutha; the moth! er of all medicines were Ayurveda, Herbal or Chinese,Alchemy, Siddha, Unani, Arabic, Egyptian, Sumerian, traditional medicinal systems, or American native Medicinal system. All reinventions will trace their root to our ancestors, all over the world. Nothing was invented new which was not already known. Only their mode of application have changed to suit varying conditions....Show more
Irma Poiter: People like to call Allopathic Medicine (Mds, Hospitals, Drugs, Etc) conventional because they prefer to see it as the mainstream medicine and only acceptable form. I think the psyche behind it is to convince the people that it is the tried and trusted form of medicine even though it has little historical track record. The "conventional" medicine practitioners like to call anything else alternative. For Example: herbs, chiropractors, naturopaths, reflexology, etc. Alternative medicines, as they call them, do have historical track records and evidence of work. But, the! allopathic care people want to see results in labs where real! life truly can't be duplicated. So you are pretty close. Those of us outside of the allopathic care industry prefer the names:Allopathic - pharmaceuticals, MDs, hospitals, non-traditional interventions like CT scans, etc. It mostly deals with relieving symptoms and rarely believes it can cure anything. Traditional: The centuries tested health care methods that deal with the whole person, can be used in concurrence with other traditional methods, don't require years of college education with textbooks written by companies trying to sell products, and with MUCH experiential knowledge and success. Traditional medicine believes in cures and restoration, not sustaining. It includes herbal, Chinese, chiropractory, massage, and even the more recent homeopathy (since it exhibits results). I believe that traditional medicine will stand the test of time, as it already has, while allopathic care is a fad that people will recognize doesn't really improve the quality of life, ju! st the quantity. People will get tired of believing that life manipulated in labs mimics reality and return to the cures of the centuries to heal themselves....Show more
Ronnie Sardi: You're pretty close, actually. "Conventional Medicine" is drugs, surgery, and the common things that "regular MDs" recommend. "Alternative Medicine" is pretty much anything else that the AMA (American Medical Association) may not have fully accepted, even if other parts of the world use it as a main source of medical practices.Chiropractic, Acupuncture, Acupressure, Naturopathic, TCM, Yoga, Homeopathy, Ayurveda, herbs, supplements, and many various medical procedures are considered Alternative in the U.S., even though there are many countries in Europe and across the world that use some of those as first-line treatments. There are some countries (England and Germany are the big ones that first come to mind) where herbs and supplements are prescribed by standard doctors. In Germany, they! even require a prescription for basic herbs and supplements and a numb! er of OTC supplements in the U.S. aren't available OTC there.It seems the main clarification is anything the AMA doesn't completely accept, but they are accepting of more things, which in turn is letting insurance companies cover them.While I don't totally agree with everything in Wikipedia's article, the base definition is pretty close to mine. You can see that at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_medicine You can also see the article about Conventional Medicine at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_medicine but that's a little bit of a broader listing that applies more to the whole world and actually includes some of what the U.S. considers "alternative" (namely herbs and whatnot).Good luck and I hope I helped!...Show more
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