Conversations That Matter: Complementary and alternative medicine
Credit to Author: Massey Padgham| Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2019 23:04:17 +0000
In 2017, Dr. Dugald Seely was awarded the Dr. Rogers Prize for contributions to complementary and alternative health in Canada. It is a Canadian prize that acknowledges the role of complementary and alternative medicine and it supports research with the awarding of $250,000 prize.
What exactly is the contribution of complementary therapies to health care? Are there direct and verifiable outcomes? And how do complementary and alternative therapies intersect with allopathic medicine?
The pushback against complementary and alternative medicine over the years has been fierce. Until the, 1970s, such therapies were known as iIrregular practices and derided as not being evidence based. Since then the door of acceptance has cracked open.
In 2019, the World Health Organization reported that 98 countries had policies on traditional Chinese medicine and 124 had regulations on herbal medicines. The report said that where traditional and complementary care converge they can help tackle the unique health challenges of the 21st century.
In Canada, Seely’s research on cardiovascular disease has been published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. He is in the midst of an 11-year study in partnership with Ottawa Hospital into how some post-surgery outcomes can be improved with complementary and alternative medicine. Seely is the founder and executive director of the Ottawa Integrative Cancer Centre, as well as the executive director of research at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine.
He says evidence-based complementary medicine has a positive impact on patients and the health care system. We invited Seely to join us for a Conversation That Matters.
Conversations That Matter is a partner program for the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University.
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